BERLIN, Jan 14: Allying himself firmly with France, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder called ON Tuesday for the first time for a second UN resolution before any military action is launched against Iraq.

He said Germany and its European partners would “probably” work closely to try to have a second vote called if Iraq failed to comply with a UN resolution on disarmament.

“I think that is sensible,” he said at a news conference in Berlin.

Schroeder, who was speaking before talks in Paris with French President Jacques Chirac, said they hoped to gauge if it would be possible to draw up a common European position on Iraq.

However, he expressed doubt that Britain would sign up to Germany’s strict anti-war stance.

At the same time, he said Germany would make its opposition to any war and its refusal to participate in military action “unmistakably clear” in the UN body, which it joined as a non-permanent member on Jan 1.

Schroeder has refused specifically to say whether Germany would vote for or against a war in any new resolution in the 15-nation Security Council.

He said he wanted Iraq to comply “fully” with UN resolution 1441, aimed at identifying its alleged programme of weapons of mass destruction and so avoiding a conflict.

But if “another decision” was taken, Germany would “make its basic position unmistakably clear in statements and votes” that it would not take part in a war.

Moreover, he warned, non-participation also meant Germany would not help to foot the bill for others to go into action.

“The days when we refused to take part but handed over a cheque are over,” he added at the press conference, referring to the 1991 invasion of Iraq.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw of Britain, the United States’ strongest ally against Iraq, also said earlier on Tuesday that London wanted a second resolution.

Paris, too, has long indicated its desire for a second UN vote, a position Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin repeated to parliament on Tuesday.

Spain, another new non-permanent member of the Security Council, shares the same view.

Germany’s stance is thus not as isolated at it had seemed when Schroeder’s anti-war rhetoric helped his centre-left coalition cling narrowly to power in last year’s general election.

But his refusal to say how Germany would vote on any resolution for war has worried left-wing members of his government who fear he may be backsliding.

He has already agreed that US and NATO forces can use German bases and air space in case of war and that German troops will help crew AWACS surveillance planes over Turkey.

Schroeder said he agreed with UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix that his team needed more time to probe Iraq’s alleged programme.

The date of Jan 27, when Blix is supposed to hand his report in to the Security Council, is only an “interim” date, the chancellor said.

Of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, three are European — Britain, France and Russia.

Germany, one of 10 non-veto-bearing rotating members, has joined the body for two years and will assume its chairmanship for the month of February. —AFP