Strasbourg, France/Baden-Baden, Germany  - Police used teargas to contain hundreds of demonstrators who tried early Saturday to reach central Strasbourg as the NATO summit was set to resume.

Leaders of the protesters said several thousand of them would be mobilised to try to disrupt the meeting, which is celebrating the alliance's 60th anniversary.

A major demonstration was planned for later Saturday in Strasbourg, where already Friday French police used teargas to drive back demonstrators who tried to push through a police cordon.

Leaders of the 28 NATO member states were meanwhile beginning their second day of meetings with a ceremony on a Rhine River bridge linking Germany and France.

Co-hosts German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy were leading the ceremony, marking the 60th anniversary and France's return to the alliance's military command.

The summit was then getting down to business in Strasbourg, with talks initially expected to focus on appointing a new secretary- general before tackling the problem of operations in Afghanistan.

Turkey late Friday vetoed the appointment of Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as the next NATO secretary general as successor to the current chief, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

Rasmussen, who officially announced his candidacy to his cabinet before heading for the summit, was still in contention but he continued to face considerable resistance from Muslim Turkey, which resents his decision not to intervene in the 2005 and 2006 Prophet Mohammed cartoons crisis.

During Friday's dinner-time talks, NATO leaders also discussed how to improve the alliance's relations with Russia, strained by its August invasion of Georgia, an aspirant NATO member.

The talks followed a day that saw US President Barack Obama steal the show, receiving a rock star's welcome and thrilling Europeans with calls for a nuclear-free world during meetings with Sarkozy in Strasbourg and Merkel in Baden-Baden, across the Rhine River. (dpa)