HELSINKI - ICELANDIC Prime Minister Geir Haarde plans to ask his Nordic counterparts for monetary aid at a three-day summit in Helsinki this week to discuss the global financial crisis that has rocked Iceland.

Mr Haarde said Iceland, which agreed with the International Monetary Fund last week on a loan of US$2.1 billion dollars (S$3.18 billion), still needed about four billion dollars, though not all of that would necessarily need to come from the Nordic countries.

'It is difficult to say the exact amount of money, but it would be good if we could get four billion dollars more,' Mr Haarde told Finnish newspaper of reference Helsingin Sanomat on Monday.

'I don't want to put pressure on my colleagues. Let's see how the negotiations go,' he said.

His comments came ahead of a meeting of the prime ministers of the five Nordic countries Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden in Helsinki on Monday.

Iceland's once booming financial sector has collapsed under the weight of the worldwide credit crunch, forcing the government to take control of the major banks as its currency has nosedived.

Mr Haarde said Iceland had expected more help from Britain and the United States, but when the help did not come, it turned to Russia.

'That was my idea. Considering the fact that many of our friends were not willing to help us, we had to discuss with Russia.'

Iceland and Russia have held discussions about a possible Russian loan possibly worth as much as four billion euros to the cash-strapped Nordic country but they have not yet reached an agreement.

Earlier on Monday Iceland's deputy foreign minister Bjoergvin Sigurdsson told reporters in Helsinki that other nations have informed Reykjavik they would be willing to consider financial aid after the details of the IMF loan are sorted out.

'We have to finish the IMF thing first. Other nations have told us that when we have concluded the IMF request for assistance, then they would be glad to take up discussions with Icelandic authorities to help us out of this crisis,' he said.

Mr Paul Thomsen, the head of the IMF mission in Iceland last week, said on Friday that the country would get a further four billion dollars from other countries as part of a package spread over two years.

Mr Thomsen did not name the countries.

Meanwhile, Mr Sigurdsson said Iceland's financial turmoil would lead to a debate on the island on European Union membership and joining the eurozone.

'The times have changed and we will have to go through these things all over again in light of these new consequences of financial crisis, and the weakness of the krona,' he said.

His Social Democratic party is the only party in Iceland that is officially in favour of EU membership, while Mr Haarde's conservative Independence Party is opposed to it.

A poll conducted by daily Mr Frettabladid at the weekend and published on Monday showed 68.8 per cent of 800 people questioned said they thought Iceland should apply for EU membership, up from 55.1 per cent in a February poll and 48.9 per cent in September 2007.

A full 72.5 per cent of those polled meanwhile said they would like to replace their plunging krona - which has shed more than half its value since January - with the euro.

Iceland, a small nation of just 320,000 inhabitants, has never applied for EU membership but has signed the European Economic Area agreement with the bloc. -- AFP