The organization's ruling North Atlantic Council (NAC) was to meet again, despite few signs of movement from France, Germany and Belgium, which are blocking a decision at the 19-member alliance.
Late Monday a senior official sought to play up hopes of an accord, despite failure by two meetings of the NAC in one day to make any progress. "We hope that overnight we might be able to fashion a way forward," said the official.
But there was little evidence of a willingness for compromise, notably from Paris. "We are concerned about the security of Turkey but we do not think that there are immediate measures to take," said a French NATO official. "We don't want to send a bad message at a bad time. We'll continue discussions." US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called the veto a "mistake" and warned NATO could become irrelevant -- saying the trio's veto would not delay a possible military attack on Iraq.
"No, because the planning can go forward outside NATO if need be," he said.
The United States formally asked NATO on January 15 to lend various kinds of backing to Turkey, a NATO member and key US ally which would be on the frontline of any war with neighbouring Iraq.
The package being examined by NATO includes deploying Patriot anti-missile batteries, AWACS surveillance planes and chemical-biological protection units to Turkey, officials say.
The European trio, arguing that NATO military planning over Iraq would send out the wrong signal, blocked the US request to begin planning to defend Turkey, NATO's only Muslim member and the only one to share a border with Iraq.
NATO ambassadors were to meet again at 1000 GMT Tuesday, seeking a deal that has eluded them for nearly a month.
On Monday Turkey, in an unprecedented move, invoked Article 4 of NATO's 1949 founding charter, which calls on the allies to consult whenever a member feels its territory is threatened.
NATO chief George Robertson reiterated that every NATO member stood by Turkey's defence needs but were split on when to launch military "tasking" for any war on Iraq.
"I don't underestimate the seriousness of the division that there is within the alliance, but that division is still about the timing of the tasking and not over whether the tasking is going to take place," he said.
With UN weapons inspectors set to deliver what could be a make-or-break report on Baghdad's cooperation on Friday, Paris and Berlin are leading a European effort to put the brakes on war and find a peaceful resolution.
NATO, which is preparing to welcome seven more members next year drawn from the former Soviet bloc, is already battling to prove its credibility in the post-Cold War world.
The alliance was consigned by many to irrelevance after the Iron Curtain crumbled but appeared to have gained a new lease of life after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
NATO for the first time invoked its Article 5 -- which states that an attack on one member is an attack on all. But then the alliance was sidelined in the US-led war on Afghanistan - Sapa-AFP
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