US 'will not block' German UN bid

George Bush and Gerhard Schroeder last met in Germany in February

President George Bush says the US will not oppose Germany's bid for permanent membership of the UN Security Council.

He made the statement in Washington, after talks with visiting German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on Monday.

Japan, India, Brazil and Germany have put forward a plan for adding 10 seats to the council - six of them permanent and four non-permanent.

Mr Bush also urged Mr Schroeder to pursue EU talks aimed at preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

"We oppose no country's bid for the Security Council," Mr Bush told reporters at the White House.

So far, the US has only come out in support of Japan.

Europe's role in the war on terror and its negotiations with Iran over the country's nuclear programme were also discussed.

Mr Bush spoke of sending a "unified message" to Tehran to say that the development of a nuclear weapon was "unacceptable".

Low ratings

Mr Schroeder's visit comes as polls show his popularity at home is at its lowest ever.

He has recently made a call for early general elections after suffering a heavy blow in local polls.

Current opinion polls show that his Christian Democrat opponent, Angela Merkel, leads Mr Schroeder's Social Democrats 44% to 27%.

She is expected to secure an easy victory when Germans go to the polls, presumably in mid-September.

"I think that the Bush administration, like everybody else, has written Schroeder off as basically a lame duck whose time is very limited now," an expert on US-German relations at John Hopkins University, Stephen Szabo, told AP news agency.