PARIS, Feb 10 (Reuters) - France, one of Europe's loudest anti-war voices, dug in its heels further on Monday against early U.S. military action against Iraq and prepared to look for support from visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin.
As the Kremlin leader flew into Paris for talks with President Jacques Chirac, France led a move within NATO that blocked planning for steps to defend Turkey in the event of war against Iraq.
The NATO alliance called a special meeting of its 19 nations' envoys after France, then Belgium and Germany, "broke silence" -- a procedure which essentially blocked U.S.-driven discussion of defensive measures for Turkey.
The three countries -- which undertook their action despite Washington's irritation -- have argued that preparations for war, even the defence of a NATO ally, could undermine diplomatic efforts to avert a war with Iraq.
Russia, like France one of the five veto-wielding permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, is also in favour of giving arms inspectors more time to carry out searches for banned weapons which Washington says Iraq is holding.
But Putin, who was due to meet Chirac later on Monday after arriving on a three-day state visit, has to balance this against his need to nurture a new-found relationship with the United States which he sees as vital for Russia's economic recovery.
Putin, on a three-day state visit planned long before the Iraq crisis came to a head, has been given a rough ride in the French media over his handling of Russia's own war in separatist Chechnya.
Before he arrived, a group of about 20 demonstrators carrying posters denouncing him as a liar and undemocratic staged a protest in front of the Paris headquarters of the Russian state airline Aeroflot.
His talks with Chirac were likely to focus on how to persuade the United States not to launch military action.
Figuring prominently was a proposal spelled out by Germany, which Putin visited on Sunday, to beef up U.N. inspections of Iraqi sites, possibly by using U.N. troops.
EUROPEAN RESISTANCE
Germany and France have led European resistance to U.S. plans to use force if it believes it necessary to ensure Iraq holds no weapons of mass destruction and to remove President Saddam Hussein.
"Anyone who follows events around Iraq can see that, in essence, the positions of Russia, France and Germany practically coincide," Putin told reporters in Germany on Sunday.
The German proposal, which builds on a French call for enhanced U.N. arms inspections in Iraq before consideration of new U.N. resolutions, has raised hackles in Washington, which sees it as a stalling mechanism.
Washington and Britain, its closest ally on Iraq, favour the idea of a new Security Council resolution possibly endorsing the use of force.
U.S. President George W. Bush's hawkish defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said at the weekend he had not been officially informed of the initiative and U.S. officials said it was "extraordinary" he had not been told.
France, while denying media reports of a secret Franco-German plan, maintained on Monday that ideas put forward by Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin to boost inspections presented the best means of keeping pressure on Iraq.
"The time has not yet come for a second resolution," said French European Affairs Minister Noelle Lenoir on LCI television, arguing de Villepin's proposals at the Security Council on February 5 offered a chance to get Iraq to disarm.
"They put pressure on Iraq to cooperate more, which by the way is what is happening," she said.
Top U.N. arms inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei said on Sunday after visiting Baghdad they had detected "the beginning of a change of heart on the part of Iraq" in cooperating with them in their searches for signs of chemical, biological and nuclear arms programmes.
Putin, aware Washington measures Russia by a different yardstick from that used for its traditional allies, was clearly mindful on Sunday of possible harm to his new and warm ties with Bush.
He told reporters in Germany there were "no barriers for further coordination" of moves with France and Germany. But he added it was "not right" to generate anti-U.S. feeling.