Germany is set to make a concerted bid this year to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council, but it must convince the United States that is worthy of a seat alongside the world's major powers.
A government official said last week that Berlin would take advantage of a "window of opportunity", probably in the autumn after a panel submits a report on reforming the United Nations to Secretary General Kofi Annan.
Germany now holds one of 10 rotating seats but will lobby for its place with the five permanent members along with Japan, plus one seat for Africa, Asia and Latin America, in what would be a vast expansion of the 15-member Council.
It would prove a major change, and one that requires a two-thirds majority vote in the UN General Assembly as well as ratification by the veto-holding powers of Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.
Int recent weeks, the government has received public backing from some permanent members, notably French President Jacques Chirac on Thursday and China earlier this month.
"At the political and economic level, Germany is a country that has plenty of influence. China wants Germany to play an important role within the framework of the United Nations," Premier Wen Jiabao said during a trip here.
But analysts say the United States, perhaps with the tacit support of Britain, could veto the proposal, which would bring another opponent of the US-led war on Iraq into the world body's inner circle.
"US enthusiasm is not as great as it was in the 1990s, particularly because of Germany's strong opposition to the Iraq war," said Marc Shattenmann, an expert on UN issues at the Erfurt School of Public Policy.
Berlin's relations with its major ally plummeted when Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder vehemently opposed any "adventurism" in Iraq, rhetoric seen by President George W. Bush as effort to win votes in the 2002 general election.
While Washington has expressed no opposition to Germany's plans, ties between the two have barely begun to improve and now it is Bush who faces difficult elections in November.
"Germany will have to make some compromises with the United States. If Bush is re-elected it will be very difficult. There would be a better chance with (John) Kerry," his Democratic challenger, said UN reform expert Andreas Bummel.
Those compromises could include abandoning any hopes of having veto power.
"If the reflection at the UN should result in any reform, it could create a new category of (permanent) member country in the Security Council; one without the right to a veto," Schattemann said.
It is a compromise the German government appears ready, if reluctant, to accept.
"Germany remains opens to any concrete proposals, which are guided by realism and pragmatism," it says in a Security Council reform position paper.
But it is unclear whether the UN report will even offer scope for the plan.
"I doubt that the Annan panel will come to much. I would envisage that it might make proposals for the continents to be better represented on the Security Council," Bummel said.
German hopes, however, remain high.
It continues to work quietly with France, Spain and the United States on a UN resolution to coincide with a transfer of power from the US-led occupation coalition in Iraq to an interim government.
Berlin also maintains thousands of peacekeepers abroad, notably in Afghanistan and the Balkans, fewer only than the United States.
"Germany sees itself as a candidate for a permanent seat. And we have important allies in this respect," Schroeder said in March. "Our friends in France support us. Important European partners too. Russia and Japan likewise."
"I am sure, considering our contribution to the fight against international terrorism, that our friends in the United States will also support us."
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