BERLIN, Feb 4 (AFP) - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was meeting German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder here later on Friday amid signs that Germany is prepared to offer further help in rebuilding Iraq.
Having started her first foreign tour in Washington's staunch war ally Britain earlier in the day, Rice is looking for fresh pledges of assistance from Germany, one of the countries who bitterly opposed the US-led invasion.
She may have taken encouragement from a surprise meeting that German Interior Minister Otto Schily had with US President George W. Bush in Washington this week.
Schily said he had told his hosts that Germany would help in setting up the new Iraqi interim government's ministries and writing its permanent constitution, following the landmark elections there last Sunday.
Germany has ruled out sending troops to Iraq -- a position repeated by the official government spokesman on Friday -- but it is already helping to train the country's new police and military although this takes place outside Iraq.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said this week: "Our position is clear. While others are talking, we have been giving training, and we will continue to give training."
The situation in Iran, which Washington accuses of trying to develop nuclear weapons, is also high on the agenda of Rice's talks with Schroeder.
Rice said in London that a military strike on Iran was "not on the agenda at this point in time" and that "we have many diplomatic tools still at our disposal and we intend to pursue them fully".
One of those tools is the effort by Germany and its fellow EU nations France and Britain to pursue diplomacy with Tehran.
Rice insisted in London that the global community was united in its drive to contain the nuclear threat from Iran. "It is the Iranians who are isolated on this issue, not the United States," she said.
But Rice is likely to find less agreement from Berlin on the issue of the EU arms embargo on China imposed after the Tiananmen Square massacre of student demonstrators in 1989.
The German government wants the embargo lifted and Schroeder made the issue one of the major points of his visit to China and Japan in December.
Finally, the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is also likely to figure high on the agenda of the talks.
Germany is arguably the key European broker in the Middle East, with Fischer one of the rare interlocutors who is respected by all sides.
Rice was to travel on to Poland, Turkey, Israel, the West Bank, Italy, France, Belgium and Luxembourg.
02/04/2005 13:27 GMT - AFP