POLAND: The US Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, walked out of a NATO meeting in Warsaw on Tuesday night, minutes before his German counterpart was due to speak.
Was it a snub, the latest parry in the sparring between Washington and Berlin over German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's election campaign rhetoric opposing US Iraq policy?
"No, I did not intentionally snub anybody. That's not my way," Mr Rumsfeld told a news conference yesterday at the end of the two-day meeting of alliance defence ministers.
However he couldn't resist a swipe when asked what steps Berlin could take to mend relations between the NATO allies. "It's not for me to give advice to other countries."
He left a long pause and then added: "We do have a saying in America: if you're in a hole, stop digging." Another pause. "Em, I'm not sure I should have said that," he said, almost giggling. "Let's pretend I never said that."
The White House said on Tuesday it would take some time to repair US-German relations despite Mr Schröder's decision not to reappoint the Justice Minister, Ms Herta Daeubler-Gmelin, to his cabinet.
She was reported to have said before the German elections that US President Bush was like Adolf Hitler in seeking to use war to detract from domestic issues.
Administration officials say Mr Bush was insulted both by the Hitler comparison and by Mr Schröder's repeated denunciations of a possible US-led attack on Iraq.
Mr Rumsfeld ruled out bilateral talks with the German Defence Minister, Mr Peter Struck, in Warsaw, pointing to the "poisoned" relations between the two countries, but yesterday he sought to play the spat down.
"Obviously we're in a period where there are quite strong views that are held in the United States about things that were said and done," he said. "We certainly have no plans that anyone could characterise as reactive to that."
Mr Struck declined at a news conference to comment on Mr Rumsfeld's hole-digging comment. "German-US relations are in a difficult period but I think that we will return soon to a good working atmosphere and relations of friendship."
- (Reuters)