BERLIN, Nov 7: A number of deputies in the coalition of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder have come out against his offer to the United States of up to 3,900 German troops for the US war against Afghanistan.

The resistance is most evident among the formerly pacifist Greens party, according to media reports as a cabinet meeting adopted the goverment decision to offer the troops.

But some members of Schroeder’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) are also against the move.

Any decision to deploy German armed forces abroad needs the approval of the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag. A motion to this effect is to be introduced on Thursday, with the vote expected to take place next week.

Although the Schroeder government may be able to win a parliamentary majority for the move, support from the opposition Christian Union and Free Democrat parties could be necessary for this.

Greens deputy Winfried Hermann said he could not approve such a mission for German forces. “We must tell the Americans that they are on the wrong road. Instead of that we are supporting them with 3,900 soldiers,” he said.

Christian Stroebele, a prominent leftwinger among the Greens deputies, was flatly against. “I see no possibility at the moment of supporting participation in a war in which civilians are being killed every day,” he said.

Doubts have also been expressed in the ranks of Schroeder’s Social Democratic Party (SPD), Bild newspaper said.

“The fear of many is that this involvement of the German armed forces is just the first step, and that it will go on step by step,” SPD deputy Michael Mueller told the paper.

SPD deputy Uwe Jens said he would not vote in favour of sending German troops. He told the Chemnitz Freie Presse that the German government decision was a move toward widening the conflict.

Jens was among SPD deputies who voted against a Bundestag motion of solidarity with the US, including possible military support, on September 19 after the September 11 attacks.

There is abiding anti-war sentiment in post-war Germany, despite increasing German involvement in military operations abroad since the country’s reunification in 1990.

The head of Germany’s Roman Catholic church, Cardinal Karl Lehmann, Wednesday joined in criticism of the US bombing of Afghanistan, saying a police operation to hunt down those responsible for the September 11 attacks would be better.

The head of Germany’s main Protestant church, Manfred Kock, had already on Sunday called for a halt to the air strikes during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

In August, Schroeder and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, the most prominent Greens party member, were unable to muster a simple SPD-Greens majority in favour of sending German troops to Macedonia.

The government needed opposition votes then to get its motion through.

According to an opinion poll published Wednesday, Germans are divided over Schroeder’s offer to provide up to 3,900 troops for the US war effort against Afghanistan.

Turkish deputies: More than 100 Turkish deputies asked the constitutional court on Wednesday to stop parliament sending elite forces to join the US-led campaign in Afghanistan, Anatolia news agency reported.

In a petition to the court, 111 lawmakers sought to suspend and cancel a parliamentary decree that authorised the troop deployment.

Opponents to the decision came mostly from two religious parties and from the ruling coalition’s centre-right Motherland Party.

Turkey, the only Muslim member of NATO, said last week it would contribute some 90 elite soldiers to the campaign against Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban.

Last week’s decision followed an Oct 10 vote by parliament authorising Turkey to send its forces abroad or host foreign troops on its soil.

Of the 422 lawmakers present in the 550-seat house on Oct 10, 319 voted in favour and 101 against, while two abstained.

The lawmakers’ petition said Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit’s government had abused its parliamentary majority to pass the decree, which they said breached procedural rules and some constitutional provisions, Anatolia reported.

Deputies who signed the petition maintained that contributing soldiers to the US-led campaign amounted to a declaration of war, which under the constitution can only be made by parliament and has to be implemented by the president.—AFP