Nato chief sees alliance role if Iraqis ask for it

De Hoop Scheffer, in Lisbon for talks with Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, added in an interview with daily newspaper Diario de Noticias that the tensions over the US-led war in Iraq which split the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation were over.

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"If a sovereign government of Iraq were to ask Nato to play a larger role in the country, I think we would have a very serious debate and the reply would certainly be 'yes'," he said.

"Everyone understands that, regardless of what they thought about the war, the international community cannot sit by and watch Iraq return to instability," he told the paper.

The US has vowed to hand over to an Iraqi government by June 30 this year.

Nato already provides support to the division of troops led by Poland in south-central Iraq, and 18 of the 26 current and future members of the alliance have a military presence in the country.

Washington has suggested that the military alliance should take on a greater role in the stabilisation of Iraq, a move which would help ease the burden on the mainly US forces in the country.

Nato took charge of the 6,100-troop International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan last year, the first major attempt by the military alliance to expand its scope of action beyond the Cold War European borders that it was set up to defend.