Opposition Eases Stand on German Troop Deployment : Europe: The Social Democrats OK the use of forces outside NATO, but only for U.N. duties.

After a long, heated debate, the opposition Social Democratic Party on Friday endorsed the deployment of German military forces outside the North Atlantic Treaty Organization area--but under tight limitations that would restrict such deployment to participation in U.N.-approved peacekeeping duties.

While the vote, taken on the final day of the party congress in Bremen, eased the Social Democrats’ previous posture that German forces should not be deployed outside NATO, it could thwart Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s commitment--made to key allies in the wake of the Persian Gulf War--that a united Germany was prepared to accept a greater role in so-called out of area military affairs.

Because successive previous West German governments interpreted ambiguous constitutional wording on the issue as barring even peacekeeping duties outside of NATO, any change will require a constitutional amendment, something that needs Social Democratic support to obtain the needed two-thirds parliamentary majority.

Kohl has promised to push for a liberal amendment that would allow German troops to join not just U.N. peacekeeping operations but also a mobile multinational strike force, such as that endorsed by NATO defense ministers earlier this week in Brussels.

Kohl and many Western political analysts believe such German involvement is vital to keep Central Europe’s largest, richest country from being isolated from its key allies.

Although Germany contributed nearly $13 billion in financial help to the Gulf War effort earlier this year, many of its allies privately accused Bonn of shirking its international responsibilities by not sending troops to help drive Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

Germans on the political right support the view, held in many allied capitals, that a policy of paying for others to fight raises the danger of isolating Germany.

Robert Zoellick, a close aide to Secretary of State James A. Baker III, recently warned a meeting in Berlin attended by several German policy-makers that bankrolling others to keep the peace would breed resentment among those who do the fighting and “singularize” Germany--something its closest allies went out of their way to avoid during last autumn’s negotiations that led to German unification and the return of its full sovereignty.

“More will never be enough,” he said.

Stung by such criticism, Kohl on two occasions in recent months has authorized the use of German forces in the Middle East, first to help clear mines in Persian Gulf waters around Kuwait, then to assist Kurdish refugees. He skirted the constitutional ban by labeling their work “humanitarian.”

Some observers believed that Kohl was deliberately inviting the Social Democrats to challenge his moves in the country’s Constitutional Court in hopes of winning a looser interpretation of the constitution’s text and thus eliminate the need to seek a formal amendment. But his aides deny it.

Indeed, others believe that Kohl, sensing a shift in public opinion in favor of a larger German military role, hopes to isolate the Social Democrats on the issue and paint them as irresponsible.