Karsten Voigt, Berlin's coordinator on US relations, likened the state of affairs to a lovers' tiff and said he was confident they could be restored.

"The damage is reparable because the interests and goals of both sides are so linked that it is important for them to work together," he told ARD television.

But, he added, "these efforts have to come from the German side."

With his coalition newly re-elected at the weekend, the chancellor skipped Paris, the traditional first post-election stop for a German leader, to fly to London instead.

In a two-hour meeting described by the British prime minister's office as "very warm and informal," they held talks centred on Iraq.

Blair, Washington's closest ally in Europe, on Tuesday released a dossier of evidence it claimed showed that the Iraqi regime was both able and willing to deploy weapons of mass destruction.

Schroeder's categorical refusal to join a strike on Iraq, even with a UN mandate, infuriated US President Geroge W. Bush, who was then further angered by an alleged remark by a German minister comparing his tactics over Baghdad to those used by Hitler.

Gernot Erler, the deputy leader of the parliamentary group of Schroeder's ruling Social Democrats, said the chancellor's talks with Blair were "a first step in order to emerge from the isolation Germany has found itself in."

Erler, a foreign relations specialist, said the isolation was caused in part by the way the issue came up during the election campaign.

"It's a new day now," he told Radio Eins. "It's after the election."

Voigt said he understood why Bush had not yet congratulated Schroeder on his election victory.

"I regret it but I can understand it, because it is effectively a diplomatic way of expressing irritation, which they wanted to signal."

He said German-US relations were still fundamentally solid.

"We have to strive to make America realise that Germany is trying to limit the damage. And the Americans should understand ... that they respect Germany as a partner with a different opinion."

km/mc

Nampa-AFP WEB story ENDS (NAMPA 250905)

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