October 5, 2002	Saturday	Rajab 27, 1423

RETHYMNO (Greece), Oct 4: Germany said on Friday it remained at odds with the United States on how to deal with Iraq and warned there would be far-reaching political and economic consequences if a strike was launched on Baghdad.

Defence Minister Peter Struck, whose country’s outspoken opposition to a possible US-led campaign against Iraq has frayed relations between Berlin and Washington, said he hoped to meet US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld within two months.

“We have talks at a lower level and I believe I will meet my colleague Donald Rumsfeld in the next weeks or perhaps in the next two months,” he told reporters as he arrived for a European Union defence ministers’ meeting on the Greek island of Crete.

French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder this week united in opposition to a US draft resolution that would effectively empower Washington to launch a war if Iraq impeded UN weapons inspections.

“There are, as before, differing opinions between my country and the United States,” Struck said.

“We are of the opinion that the next step should be for inspectors to go in to assess (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein’s ability to build weapons of mass destruction, but others are already set on military action.”

Rumsfeld had refused to hold a bilateral meeting with Struck at a NATO meeting in Warsaw last week, citing the “poisoned” relations between the two countries.

There were signs this week that tensions between Washington and Berlin were easing.

US President George W. Bush congratulated Germany on the 12th anniversary of its reunification on Thursday, and US officials said Secretary of State Colin Powell had talked to Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and that they planned to meet.—Reuters