HANOVER, Aug 6: German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said on Monday his country would not participate in military “adventures” in Iraq, as his party strengthened its resistance to possible US strikes against Baghdad.

Speaking at a rally in his home town at the start of the campaign for next month’s election, Schroeder insisted that Germany would require a new United Nation mandate before it would consider participating in military action against Iraq.

“Pressure on Saddam Hussein, yes, but toying with war and military intervention — I can only warn against that,” Schroeder said.

“Under my leadership, Germany will not be available for adventures,” he said, adding that the political and economic repercussions of a possible attack in Iraq must be considered.

The general secretary of Schroeder’s Social Democrats, Franz Muentefering, went farther, telling the same rally in Hanover that even with a UN mandate, German soldiers would not necessarily join an attack on Iraq.

“No participation in a possible military strike against Iraq,” Muentefering called to the crowd. Schroeder said that Germany would no longer engage in the “chequebook diplomacy” used in 1991.

Bavarian premier Edmund Stoiber, who is leading in the polls against Schroeder before the Sept 22 general election, accused Schroeder of trying to deflect attention from domestic problems such as joblessness and the state of the economy with his talk on Iraq.

Stoiber’s chief foreign policy advisor Wolfgang Schaeuble said over the weekend that if the conservatives win in September and a UN resolution on attacking Iraq is passed, Germany would participate in military strikes “in an appropriate way”.

But Stoiber said there were no major differences of opinion between the government and the opposition on Iraq and that both were agreed it was essential that UN weapons inspectors be allowed back into the country.

Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, whose Greens party has been highly sceptical about military action in Iraq, warned that strikes could lead to an escalation of violence in the Middle East and spark terrorism against the West.

“We in Europe would bear the main brunt of it,” he said.

ARAB LEAGUE: The Arab League told Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on Tuesday it was determined to see lifted the crippling UN sanctions slapped on the country in 1990, the INA news agency said.