BERLIN, Jan 14: German opposition politicians stepped up pressure on Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Saturday, saying he should resign if German secret agents were shown to have helped the United States in its invasion of Iraq.

Germany’s BND foreign intelligence service has denied reports its agents helped US warplanes select bombing targets in Baghdad during the 2003 invasion, which the government of former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder opposed.

The government has confirmed the presence of two German agents in Baghdad at the time and Mr Steinmeier, who as Mr Schroeder’s head of chancellery oversaw the BND in the last government, has come under growing pressure as a result of the affair.

“If the allegations are correct, then in the interests of accepting political responsibility, there must be personal consequences at the highest level,” Matthias Berninger, a member of parliament for the opposition Greens, told Welt am Sonntag.

The parliamentary business manager of the liberal Free Democrats, Juergen Koppelin, told Bild am Sonntag that if BND agents had helped US forces it would mean that Germany took part in the invasion, which was opposed by most Germans.

“Mr Steinmeier would then have to accept his share of responsibility,” he said.

Mr Steinmeier rejected the calls to resign, telling the daily Bild on Saturday: “The question doesn’t arise.”

Opposition politicians have called for a parliamentary inquiry into the reports, originally carried in a leading newspaper and on public television this week.

Several leading Greens have said the affair was deliberately leaked by US officials before Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to Washington this week in revenge for her recent criticism of the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

‘NON-TARGETS’: The German government has said the agents in Baghdad were there to provide it with first-hand information about the invasion and that as part of their duties they provided US forces with information on buildings to avoid such as schools or hospitals.

But it has denied they gave information on bombing targets.

The case is the latest of a series of issues relating to the activities of the intelligence services under the last government that have returned to haunt Mr Steinmeier.

The government confirmed for the first time last month that German security officials had questioned detainees at Guantanamo Bay and had also interviewed a German-Syrian terrorist suspect in a Syrian prison in 2002.—Reuters