BERLIN (AFP) - Berlin's mayor gave his backing Tuesday for Barack Obama to speak at the Brandenburg Gate during a visit to the capital this month, after reports the government has reservations about the venue.

Mayor Klaus Wowereit said the US Democratic presidential hopeful could expect the city-state's backing in his reported bid to speak at the landmark, which symbolises German re-unification, according to his spokesman.

"The mayor would be pleased if he used the occasion of a visit to the Brandenburg Gate to convey a message," he said, adding that Obama would likely visit Berlin on July 24.

But the spokesman said it remained to be seen "how all of this fits in the programme for the visit" and that an advance team from the Obama campaign would discuss security and other concerns with local authorities.

The online version of news weekly Der Spiegel reported Monday that the German government had raised objections about the prospect of Obama holding a speech at the Brandenburg Gate.

An unnamed official told the website that the gate was "the site in the country that is the best-known and the most steeped in history" due to the euphoric celebrations that took place there after the Berlin Wall, which ran just beside it, fell in 1989.

The official was quoted as saying that in the past, only elected leaders had been invited to hold speeches there and not candidates for high office.

These include the famous address at the landmark by then US president Ronald Reagan, who called out in 1987 to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, "Tear down this wall!"

The United States reopened a new embassy adjacent to the gate on July 4, US Independence Day, marking the mission's return to the site it last occupied in 1941.

Obama's staff said Saturday that he would visit France, Germany, Israel, Jordan and Britain to discuss "common challenges" with countries "critical to American national security". But it did not provide details of his programme.

A survey released this month showed that 72 percent of Germans back Obama to become the next US president, against just 11 percent for his presumed Republican opponent John McCain.

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