US sounds out NATO for help in hotspots

But it remains to be seen whether the 19-member military bloc -- still tender from the bruising and unprecedented crisis into which the Iraq conflict plunged it -- can overcome divisions and rise to meet the challenge.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell last week made the clearest call since the toppling of Saddam Hussein for NATO to "examine how it might do more to support peace and stability in Iraq."

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But although no one present at the talks between NATO foreign ministers said an outright 'no,' the prospects of a collective Alliance deployment anytime soon look extremely slim.

As Alliance chief George Robertson pointed out: "We've not yet come to the stage of discussing whether a wider role is appropriate for NATO in Iraq.

"That will probably come next year and I think it will be judged in terms of what we still have to do in Afghanistan," where NATO only took over command of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in August.

Among ideas circulating in NATO's sprawling headquarters on the outskirts of Brussels is the possibility of the Alliance taking over command of the division of the multinational force in southern Iraq currently led by Poland.

Powell's appeal -- preceded by remarks in a similar vein by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld earlier in the week, also in Brussels -- did not fall on deaf ears.

In fact most individual NATO nations -- 18 out of the 26 current and incoming members due to join next year -- are already part of the US-led coalition in Iraq, and would welcome more direct involvement by NATO itself.

Poland, Spain, Italy, as well as Denmark and the Netherlands, made their support for such plans clear at last week's NATO ministerial meetings, according to diplomats.

The Iraq question plunged NATO into one of the worst crises in its 54-year history in February, after four Alliance members -- France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg -- opposed offering help to fellow member Turkey.