Bush in Brussels. (AFP)

Brussels, Feb. 22 (Reuters): President George W. Bush won a largely symbolic pledge from Nato allies, including Iraq war critics, to help train Iraqi security forces today at a summit staged to showcase resurrected transatlantic partnership.

But US-European differences over China and Iran resurfaced with Bush voicing concern at EU plans to end an arms embargo on Beijing, and France pressing Washington to offer Tehran incentives to curb its nuclear programme.

And France and Germany renewed calls for a reform of transatlantic relations that would give greater weight to the emerging, enlarged EU as the key US partner, challenging the primacy Washington accords to Nato.

Bush said after a summit of the 26 Nato leaders that the Cold War defence alliance remained the central security organisation binding Europe and the US.

?I think it is the vital relationship for the US when it comes to security,? he said. ?It is a relationship that... has worked in the past and is adjusting so that it works in the future.? French President Jacques Chirac said he sensed in talks with Bush last night that the US leader understood what he called the new European reality, in which the EU was taking on ever greater weight, including in defence.

?Europe and the US are real partners. So we need to dialogue and listen to each other more,? he told the summit.

?We must also, as the German chancellor has underlined, continue to take account of the changes that have occurred on the European continent,? Chirac said.

Nato secretary-general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer trumpeted the agreement of all 26 allies to make some contribution to the Iraq training mission as a sign of the alliance?s rediscovered unity.

But that boast masked wide divergence in the level of help on offer. France, agreed for just one of its officers at Nato headquarters to help coordinate offers of equipment to the Iraqi military. Asked if he was satisfied with such token contributions, Bush shrugged: ?Every contribution helps.?

The US is to provide around 60 trainers out of a total close to 160. France, Germany and Belgium remain adamant that their personnel not serve inside Iraq.

Bush voiced worries that EU plans to end a ban on arms sales to China could change the balance with Taiwan, which Washington is committed to defend, but hinted he could accept EU assurances that it would not lead to dangerous technology transfers.

Bush plotter

A Virginia man, arrested and held in Saudi Arabia, has been returned to the US to face charges of supporting al Qaida, and was accused of plotting in 2002 and 2003 to kill Bush, court documents made public today said.