Schröder, Mubarak Disagree On Inspections German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak staked out different positions on the mission of U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq during talks they held in Berlin on Wednesday. Mubarak called for a time limit to be imposed on the inspectors. But Schröder stressed the position that he and the 14 other leaders of the European Union took at an emergency summit on Monday. The leaders urged that the inspectors have all the time they need. But both leaders stressed that they wanted the crisis to be solved peacefully.

NATO Pledges To Aid Turkey

Formally ending a deep dispute, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on Wednesday agreed to provide the alliance member Turkey with military aid if it were attacked by Iraq. The issue drove a wedge into the alliance last week when Germany, France and Belgium vetoed a U.S. request to begin planning for the assistance. The alliance's general secretary, George Robertson, worked out a compromise on Sunday that, among other things, pledged alliance support of the United Nations' effort to settle the conflict with Iraq peacefully. The aid would include airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft that would provide surveillance and Patriot missiles that would offer air defense.

Minister Calls Small-Pox Threat Limited

Responding to criticism from the opposition, Health Minister Ulla Schmidt told the German parliament on Wednesday that there was only a limited threat that terrorists would unleash the small-pox virus in Germany. Schmidt described the threat as abstract because officials around the world do not know whether the virus was being kept outside of the official laboratories in the United States and Russia. Faced with this uncertainty, she said she was pressing ahead with a program to acquire the vaccine. The government now has about 38 million doses and plans to have 100 million by year's end.