GERMANY: The leaders of Germany, France and Britain will meet in Berlin on Saturday to try and heal the rift caused by the war on Iraq and to discuss their differences over the future role of the UN in the country.
The mini-summit is the first time all leaders have met together since the war. With 75 US soldiers killed in Iraq since the official end of the war on May 1st, the US is anxious to win over other states to share the task of policing and reconstructing Iraq.
But France and Germany, the war's two loudest opponents, are holding out for a greater UN role in Iraq's security and reconstruction, and have rejected a US draft resolution for UN troops working under American control as "not dynamic enough".
"The meeting will serve to agree on common positions in foreign policy after there were divergent opinions in the run-up to the Iraq war," said the German government yesterday in a short statement.
A spokesman for the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, said the meeting came at the suggestion of all three leaders who had reached a "consensus" that now was the right time for a mini-summit.
"It will be a chance for a fairly wide-ranging discussion on economic matters and international affairs. Iraq will be discussed and also other European matters," said the Prime Minister's spokesman.
The leaders will be hoping for a more positive outcome than that which emerged from UN talks held in Geneva at the weekend.
Germany has already ruled out sending troops in any form to Iraq. The country's soldiers are already overstretched in the Balkans and Afghanistan.
Mr Blair will meet his Spanish counterpart, Mr Jose Maria Aznar, on Sunday at Chequers, his country retreat.
Mr Schröder will meet President George Bush after the opening of the UN General Assembly on Friday next week, the first formal meeting of the men since their falling out over Iraq.
Mr Chirac will travel to Berlin tomorrow for regular Franco-German talks, and Iraq is expected to be top of the agenda.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss the Swedish No to the euro at the weekend, and growing anger in the rest of the euro zone at their flouting of deficit guidelines.
Mr Chirac defended French economic policies yesterday, saying France had never contested the need for deficit ground rules.
However, he said he was confident that Berlin and Paris had struck a successful balance of reform and new debt to help encourage an economic recovery.
"In the United States, in Germany, in Japan, coherent economic policies which favour growth are being pursued.
"I welcome the determined action of the German government to carry out major reforms to underpin this activity," Mr Chirac said in Auxerre in Burgundy yesterday.