BRUSSELS, Feb 16: Nato ambassadors considered a compromise deal on Sunday to break their deadlock over planning for the defence of Turkey in the event of a US-led war against Iraq, but Belgium indicated that the talks were not going well.

With France still refusing to back a decision it sees as an implicit acceptance that war is inevitable, the 19-nation alliance took the Belgian-proposed compromise to its Defence Planning Committee — where France does not have a seat.

Belgium and Germany stuck by France through a crisis which has hammered Nato’s credibility. But the move to bypass Paris and try for a decision in the 18-nation Defence Planning Committee suggested they were anxious to find a way out. But it was far from certain a deal could be clinched on Sunday and diplomats said the crisis could roll on into the week, adding to tension over Iraq at a summit of European Union leaders on Monday.

“They do not want to give us satisfaction, but we won’t give in,” Belgium Foreign Minister Louis Michel told the news agency Belga as the meeting dragged into the early evening.

COMPROMISE PROPOSAL: The measures under discussion by the Defence Planning Committee are the same as those which the European trio have blocked for a month, arguing that the time was not right.

These are deployment of AWACS surveillance planes, Patriot air defence missiles and anti-chemical and anti-germ warfare units to Nato ally Turkey, a likely launchpad for war on Iraq.

Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt opened the door for a compromise on Saturday, saying any defence for Turkey must not imply Nato participation in military action. It must be purely defensive and allies must commit themselves to permanent monitoring of the Iraq debate in the UN Security Council.

“If the three elements are not in the text, then we really have a problem with this decision and we will not support it,” Michel told VTM television. His cabinet colleague Budget Minister Johan Vande Lanotte dampened hopes for a breakthrough, telling the same channel: “The first things we are getting from the United States is that they are not so happy with our initiative”.

France is not included on the Defence Planning Committee because it withdrew from the integrated military structure of the alliance in 1966. The forum was used to get round French objections during the 1991 Gulf War when Nato sent its Allied Command Europe Mobile Force to southeastern Turkey.

FRENCH “FIG-LEAF”: A French Nato mission spokesman said there would be a meeting of the alliance’s 19 ambassadors after the defence committee session, though only for a political statement. He said this meeting would “allow for a reaffirmation of the fact that the allies are ready, of course, to meet their obligations to Turkey according to the (Nato) treaty”.

But, in a sign of continued rancour over the veto wielded by France, Germany and Belgium, a senior diplomat from one of the 16-strong majority said he would not back a “fig-leaf” political statement on solidarity with Turkey for Paris to hide behind.—Reuters