Mr Powell is hoping to heal the rift with the Germans

US Secretary of State Colin Powell is in Berlin for talks with Germany's chancellor and foreign minister aimed at repairing relations damaged by the Iraq crisis.

He will also be looking for support for a new United Nations resolution on Iraq.

Mr Powell told reporters on the flight to Berlin that he was still seeking to get UN sanctions fully lifted.

"We're going for a lifting of the sanctions," Mr Powell said on the flight from the Bulgarian capital of Sofia, where at a news conference with Prime Minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg he had said a suspension could be considered.

Other permanent members of the UN Security Council have opposed lifting the sanctions until UN inspectors are allowed back into Iraq and declare it free of weapons of mass destruction.

Mr Powell is the most senior US official to visit Berlin since last September's German elections when Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's vocal opposition to US policy on Iraq led to a severe diplomatic chill between the two countries.

Mr Powell is to meet Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder at 1000 (0800 GMT) on Friday and will later have lunch with Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer.

Problems remain

For Germany, supporting a US proposal at the Security Council could be a means of working its way back into favour in Washington, says the BBC's Berlin correspondent Ray Furlong.

But problems remain as Chancellor Schroeder has not spoken to US President George Bush since November and their relationship may be irreparable, our correspondent says.

However, healing the rift with the United States is so important for the German Government that Chancellor Schroeder has cut short a tour of South East Asia in order to meet Mr Powell.

In a television interview on the eve of their talks, Mr Schroeder said that sanctions on Iraq should be lifted as soon as possible.

Mr Powell's visits to Germany and Bulgaria follow trips to Russia and Saudi Arabia earlier this week.