"Given the common threats that Europe and North America face and the common values that we hold, we must remain committed to our common defence," said the assembly's president Doug Bereuter of the United States.

The North Atlantic Treaty Alliance was seriously split by a crisis over Iraq sparked by three anti-war member states -- France, Germany and Belgium -- over whether it should boost NATO member Turkey's defences in preparation for the war.

"There has been a lot of constructive efforts to bridge the gaps, I hope it will continue, I hope it will continue after (the G8 meeting in) Evian," Bereuter said.

The Group of Eight gathering in France on June 1-3 will bring US President George W. Bush face to face with two of the most critical opponents of the US-led intervention in Iraq, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

The French NATO delegation also tried to paper over the cracks.

"There is not a war camp and a peace camp. There is a camp of democracies," head of the French delegation Pierre Lellouche said.

Several deputies said the divisions over Iraq, the worst crisis in the alliance's history, exposed a deeper crisis within NATO, which was set up in 1949 to counter a rising threat from the Soviet Union, a threat that has now disappeared.

"We are in a pretty important crisis. NATO has been side-lined during the Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns," Bert Koenders of the Netherlands said, calling on the body to "reenergise the NATO concept."

Lellouche concurred.

"We can't fail to see that Iraq has raised fundamental disagreements that will persist," he said. "We have to courageously redefine the basic concept of

The four-day NATO parliamentary assembly brought together some 300 lawmakers from the alliance's 19 members together with 20 associated states from central and eastern Europe, including Russia.

Founded in 1955, the assembly convenes a full session twice a year and it serves a consultative role for the alliance.

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