Trittin told the gathering, which is one of the final preparation meetings for the world summit on sustainable development in Johannesburg next year: "In both North and South we are faced with the question: should water remain a public commodity or is privatization acceptable?

"What is appropriate for electricity, gas and telecommunications cannot simply be applied to water. Drinking water is as irreplaceable as the air we breathe. Providing citizens with an adequate supply of high quality water is, and should remain a public tasks for the services of general interest. "There is a broad potential for activity for the water industry with regards to infrastructure, but qualitative supply security and the principle of sustainable development must have priority over market forces, not take second place."

In bringing up the potential role of private industry Trittin hit upon one of the few issues of any controversy in Bonn, at a conference where most of the delegates agree on most of the subjects before them. The draft declaration, to be approved on Friday contains no brackets - or indications of language that was not settled in preliminary negotiations.

A single section on the role of gender in water issues was left for amplification in Bonn. But Trittin, in a brief interview with the Conference News Daily said Monday that he expected other issues would be raised during the week- long conference.

One nongovernmental organization, the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council is lobbying for the final document to commit the world to reducing by half by 2015 the number of persons in the world who have no access to good sanitation systems. A similar commitment, to cut in half the number of persons without access to clean water by 2015 was made in the UN's millennium summit last year.

The draft declaration labels as a "scandal" the fact that " 1.2 billion people have no access to safe and affordable drinking water and nearly twice as many people have no proper sanitation."

The 11-page draft under study in Bonn commits the delegates to international cooperation on rivers; changes in development in trade policies regarding water intensive good, a revision of subsidies in rich countries where they hinder water development in undeveloped countries, agreements that polluters pay for the damage they cause"; an emphasis on public gudgeats for water development, tariff systems "that allow social targeting for people who cannot afford water; and a recognition "that ownership of asses creates social, environmental and ethical obligations which are compatible with commercial business practices and the profit motive."

Looking out over a relatively well-heeled group of delegates, overwhelmingly male, from a platform in front of a huge German eagle, Trittin said that wealthy, purchasing, countries had a role in changing distorted markets. "A high tech country exports its groundwater along with its oranges. An arid country with valuable mineral resource enjoys the luxury of being one of the world's biggest grain exporters.

"Without long-term buyers, however, there would be no product.

"Our behavior as purchasing countries is no more sustainable than that of the producing countries. We buy, in shape of the products, the water which the local population has far greater need for. This applies to all of us." Nitin Desai, the UN Under Secretary General, and the head of next year's Johannesburg summit, said "if you get the water situation right than all of the other dimensions of the sustainable development will be right also.

He said the discussion papers prepared for the Bonn meeting reflected new scientific facts, incorporated the development role, and provided practical concrete examples and advice in tackling the water issues.

Klaus Toepfer, the executive director of the UN Environment Program said that in addition to the three pillars of sustainable development: poverty eradication, environmental protection, and economic development would lie to "add another dimension, which I belief should be also be added to sustainable development.

"Water is also a key to cultural diversity," he said. "If you go back to the cultures of ancient times, to all the great religions of the world you will see that water is much more than an economic issue. Water is directly linked with spiritual values, with respect of mankind towards nature. "The issue of cultural diversity in a globalized world is, I believe a dimension we should be aware of in the run up to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg next year."

Maria Mutagamba, Uganda's Water minister, said that her country had dedicated itself to beat the international goals, of reducing water and sanitation -deprived numbers in half in less than 15 years.

" Our goal is to reduce them by 100 per cent by 2015," she said. "May god help us.

She said that Uganda would need about $1 billion to meet its goal, and is "alarmingly" short on budget for that figure. She said her country would need external support to meet the goal.

Mutagamba said that she had met with other African ministers earlier Monday " in an effort to create an initiative" in Bonn for " a common call" for international assistance in the continent. In a brief interview with this newspaper after her speech, she said the basic difference between developed and developing countries in the water issue is "we in the developing world are attempting to provide the basic service, the basic water supply."

Developed nations have gone beyond that, she said.

Mutagamba said she believed that private industry had a role in the provision of water "but to now we don't have the basic skills and the technical capabilities in the private areas and must rely on outside help." Uschi Eid, the Parliamentary State Secretary in the German Economic cooperation and Development ministry, said, "today we find that access to water is not last a social issue.

"Poverty and access to water are mutually related. Many people are poor because they have no water especially in rural areas. But even more people have no water because they are poorly," she said.

Noting that the meeting was only meters from the Rhine River, and claiming that the intergovernmental commission in charge of the Rhine navigation "is one of the oldest intuitions for intergovernmental cooperation in Europe," Eids said " let the rhine and its dynamism inspire us."