"The Spanish government does not foreseee any participation in the process under way in Iraq, and in no circumstances any participation on Iraqi territory," Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told reporters here.

He was replying to a question on whether Spain would help train the fledgling Iraqi army.

Spain last month completed withdrawal of its 1,400-strong military contingent in Iraq, fulfilling a pledge by the Socialist prime minister who came to power after a surprise general election victory on March 14.

"My political position on this issue is very coherent," Zapatero said after NATO leaders pledged at a summit here to provide "full cooperation" to the new Iraqi government and to help train its soldiers.

The phrasing of the NATO agreement specifically left it open for such training to occur inside or outside Iraq -- a sop to France and Germany, which opposed the US-led invasion and have said they are unwilling to send troops into Iraq.

Spain's Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said earlier in June that his country would not send any of its troops back to Iraq "no matter under what umbrella."

The blanket refusal came after US President George W. Bush called at a G8 summit for greater NATO involvement in Iraq.

The Spanish troops had been sent into Iraq by Zapatero's conservative predecessor Jose Maria Aznar, who was a strong backer of the US-led war in Iraq.

Aznar was defeated in an election that came just three days after the March 11 bomb attacks in Madrid, which killed almost 200 people.

His Popular Party (PP) immediately blamed the attacks on its arch enemy, armed Basque separatist group ETA. And it continued to do so for days even when evidence was emerging that the atrocities were carried out by Islamic extremists in retaliation for the government's support for the US-led war on Iraq.

This led to accusations from the Socialists that the PP tried to hide the truth about the attacks, in a bid to deflect criticism of its stance on Iraq long enough to secure re-election in the March 14 vote.

Zapatero's government made any maintaining of Spanish troops there conditional on the United Nations taking total charge over the political and military situation in Iraq after the handover of sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government.

A UN Security Council approved unanimously this month authorised the handover of power and spelled out a UN role to help prepare for Iraqi elections.

But it did not authorise the UN to take charge politically or militarily.

WAR.WIRE