NATO and the European Union will hold separate meetings this week amid growing concern that anti-tank shells tipped with depleted uranium used in the Balkans may have caused dozens of cases of leukaemia among soldiers.
It also emerged that NATO warned its member states 18 months ago of a "possible toxic threat" from radioactive weaponry, widely blamed for the "Balkans Syndrome" that has allegedly caused deaths and cancers among peacekeepers.
The German defence ministry confirmed reports that NATO issued warnings in July 1999 recommending that countries take their own "preventative measures".
Meanwhile Friends of the Earth and a Scottish parliamentarian demanded the clean-up of waters around Scotland where shells were test fired for 10 years.
The demand came after Britain's defence ministry said it had fired more than 6,000 shells with depleted uranium into the Solway Firth over the past decade and left them on the seabed.
Mr Richard Dixon, spokesman for Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: "We are calling on the defence ministry to bring in their detection equipment and remove these shells." A Scottish Nationalist MP, Mr Aladair Morgan, joined in the demand. A ministry spokeswoman said retrieval would be "almost impossible".
Depleted uranium (DU) is used in missiles, shells and bullets to increase armour penetration. Defence experts say it can be pulverised on impact into a toxic radioactive dust.
Amid a clamour for clarification of where, when and how much DU ammunition was used in the Balkans, NATO insists there is no known risk of contamination.
The German Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schroder, joined a chorus of support yesterday for an Italian demand for NATO to investigate claims that Western troops in the Balkans fell ill through exposure to the depleted uranium.
Six Italian soldiers died of leukaemia after serving in the Balkans, provoking demands from Rome last week that NATO look into the risks the troops had been exposed to. NATO political advisers will discuss the DU row today ahead of a meeting of the North Atlantic Council - the alliance's permanent ambassadors - in Brussels tomorrow. The alliance's medical chiefs will also discuss the depleted uranium issue at talks next week.
EU foreign ministers are also expected to add the issue to the agenda for their monthly meeting in Brussels on January 22nd.
Yesterday's Die Welt newspaper in Germany reported that NATO would have put together by today a detailed overview of all flight operations over Bosnia in 1994/5 which had involved depleted uranium munitions. Such a map already exists for Kosovo, the newspaper said.
Mr Schroder said the Defence Minister, Mr Rudolf Scharping, who has come under opposition attack for refusing to test all Germany's 60,000 Balkans peacekeepers, had already acted last year to examine soldiers serving in risky areas.
Up until now those tests had shown no connection between time in the Balkans and leukaemia, the chancellor said.
Portugal is to send ministers to Kosovo, a government statement said yesterday. The Defence and Interior Ministers, Mr Julio Castro Caldas and Mr Severiano Teixeira, are to meet Portuguese members of the NATO-led Kfor force, while the Science and Technology Minister, Mr Mariano Gago, will meet representatives of the Portuguese Institute for Technology and Nuclear Power, who are already in Kosovo.
Meanwhile, Greece said it was stepping up health checks and radiation controls for its 1,400 troops in Kosovo, while Norway offered health checks to all staff who served on foreign missions in the last 10 years.
Croatia said it would press NATO to clarify whether alliance aircraft had dumped depleted uranium bombs in the Adriatic Sea as they returned from Kosovo to bases in Italy.