"I will visit Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in early May to overcome past difficulties," Struck said on Friday during a television talk-show.

Struck will travel to the US capital on May 4 and 5 to take part in a NATO summit, his spokesman said.

Relations between Washington and Berlin have cooled since the summer after Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder vehemently opposed a US-led military action against Iraq and vowed Germany would not send any troops to participate.

The two countries are now ready "to start a new kind of realpolitik," Struck told the Sunday paper Tagesspiegel am Sonntag.

"I think that Germany's unambiguous position over Iraq has already shown that the Germans and Europeans have grown in confidence," Struck said, adding "the Americans have accepted that in the meantime."

The Sunday paper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung said Washington had made an "important proposal" to Berlin to revive military cooperation between the two countries.

The proposal, which envisaged several joint arms projects, would be seen by Berlin as "a last chance" and as a test by Washington of whether the Germans were truly interested in kick-starting transatlantic relations, the paper added.

In a letter sent to the German government in mid-February, Washington offered its assurances that it wanted to retain the two countries tight military cooperation.

A defence ministry spokesman could not confirm the existence of the letter, and said there were no new military projects in the offing apart from those already under study.

SPACE.WIRE