Bonn - A rift opened yesterday within Germany's Greens between supporters and critics of air strike. It occurred after the junior ruling party's foreign policy spokesman said NATO might need to send troops to Kosovo.
Mr Helmut Lippelt said parliament would have to face approving ground troops if NATO decided they were necessary to stop Yugoslav forces driving out ethnic Albanians. NATO says it has no plans for ground troops.
"We will not be able to resist the pressure much longer if Kosovo keeps burning," Mr Lippelt told German Radio. "Parliament must be ready in the face of this inferno."
Greens co-leader Antje Radcke, of the party's "fundamentalist" wing, said the Greens would only be prepared to stay in government if they could use their influence to end fighting.
Foreign Minister Mr Joschka Fischer, a leading Green, has backed Germany's involvement in the air strikes but grassroots activists have opposed it.