The German Foreign Minister, Mr Joschka Fischer, called yesterday for NATO to review its bombing targets in the light of recent blunders involving a hospital and ambassadorial residences in Belgrade.
Mr Fischer has instructed Germany's representative at NATO headquarters in Brussels to urge the alliance to take greater care to avoid civilian casualties.
But a Foreign Ministry spokesman insisted Germany was not attempting to introduce a ceasefire "by the back door".
Mr Fischer's call came amid signs that attempts to find a peaceful solution to the Kosovo crisis had stalled.
Diplomats from the G8 (the seven leading industrialised nations and Russia) ended a meeting in Bonn without agreeing on a draft Security Council resolution. Officials said that major differences remain, especially over the composition and command structure of the proposed peacekeeping force for Kosovo.
An opinion poll published yesterday shows that Germans are rapidly turning against the NATO campaign.
Fifty-two per cent of those polled now support NATO's action, compared with 60 per cent last month; 44 per cent are now opposed to the war, 9 per cent more than in April.
Germans are equally divided on whether NATO should interrupt its bombing campaign, but two out of three easterners favour a temporary halt to the bombing.
Members of Mr Fischer's Greens in the city of Duisburg have abandoned their campaign for next month's European elections in protest against the government's policy on Kosovo.
The local branch of the party will spend the rest of its campaign budget, DM5,000, on anti-war activities, according to the party's candidate for mayor of Duisburg, Mr Gerd Schwemm.
"We are protesting in this way against the war in Yugoslavia, which is conducted by red-green [Chancellor Gerhard Schroder's coalition of Social Democrats and Greens] and is in breach of the Green Party's policy, international law and the constitution," he said.
Thirty-seven billboard hoardings with Green election advertisements in the city will be plastered over with home-made protest slogans, and information stands will distribute anti-war leaflets rather than election literature.
