GERMANY: Old Europe struck back in the transatlantic war of words over Iraq yesterday when the German Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schröder, dismissed US criticism of France and Germany as "polemic".
Mr Schröder said that remarks by Mr Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, that Germany and France were "old Europe" and "problems" in the Iraq stand-off, showed the need for the EU to co-ordinate its foreign policy.
"I am not interested in taking part in a polemical discussion," said Mr Schröder in a television interview yesterday.
He said the current differences of opinion would not destroy US-German relations, but said he felt a "growing agreement" in Europe for the Franco-German position on Iraq.
"The current debate shows how necessary it is to develop a common European foreign policy and to have it represented by an EU foreign minister," said Mr Schröder earlier in the day.
Mr Michael Müller, a Social Democratic Party (SPD) deputy leader, went further, saying Mr Rumsfeld's remarks were like "the return of the Inquisition".
Mr Schröder held telephone talks yesterday with the Russian President, Mr Vladimir Putin, during which both agreed on the need to give UN weapons inspectors all the time they required to finish their work in Iraq.
The two leaders "agreed that all political possibilities to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1441 must be exhausted", according to a government spokesman in Berlin.
They agreed that the report to be presented by UN weapons inspectors on Monday was of "great importance".
A Kremlin spokesman stressed "the proximity of the approaches of Russia and Germany".
The spokesman said both countries favoured "political regulation of the Iraqi problem in the framework of the United Nations".
China said on Thursday that its position was "extremely close to France", meaning the US and Britain could find themselves in the minority among the permanent members when the Security Council meets on Monday. Germany has said it would not support any resolutions that "legitimise war" but, as a non-permanent member, has no power of veto.
However, it takes over from France as chair of the Security Council next month, during what is likely to be a decisive time for the body.
The German government announced yesterday that the UN chief weapons inspector, Dr Hans Blix, will meet Chancellor Schröder and Mr Joschka Fischer, the foreign minister, in Berlin on February 5th.
The announcement shows that Berlin is determined to pursue its own diplomatic strategy.
Leading German intellectuals spoke out yesterday in a statement condemning Mr Rumsfeld's remarks and a war in Iraq.
"Nothing justifies a preventative strike against a country whose population is suffering under a dictator with contempt for human beings and suffering from the consequences of the last Gulf War," said a statement signed by Mr Günter Grass, the Noble Prize-winning author, and other leading German intellectuals.
Mr Rumsfeld's remarks provided a rare moment of unity in the German media yesterday, with all newspapers almost uniformly annoyed.
It was a bad day to be a pro-US newspaper, judging from how the normally gung-ho Bild tabloid, Germany's answer to the Sun, buried the story at the bottom of page two.
It was left to a columnist to remind Mr Rumsfeld in an open letter that "without the old Europe there would be no New World and no you", telling readers that both Mr Rumsfeld's parents are of German descent.
"Your predecessors from Bremen don't like hearing in heaven how you're running down the homeland," wrote Mr Franz-Josef Wagner.
He added that the remarks were disrespectful to the US soldiers who died "freeing us from the tyranny of Hitler".
Even the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung was annoyed. "Why didn't just extend the Axis of Evil immediately?" asked the newspaper in a front-page editorial.