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With UN weapons inspectors poised Monday to deliver a key report on Iraq to the Security Council, Russian President Vladimir Putin told British Prime Minister Tony Blair that inspections must be allowed to continue.

In a telephone conversation with the British leader Putin "stressed the need to continue the work of international inspectors in line with UN Security Council resolutions," a Kremlin statement said.

"As with the resolution of other international problems, you have to make full use of coordinated political and diplomatic efforts to remove the international community's concerns," the statement quoted him as saying.

Earlier, Russian officials insisted that the findings to be conveyed by the weapons inspectors to UN headquarters in New York were provisional and not to be taken as justification for a final decision on launching strikes on Baghdad.

Foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko reaffirmed Russia's view that the UN inspection team must receive all the time necessary to establish whether or not Iraq is defying a UN resolution to disarm.

"Only the inspections can answer the question as to whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. That's why we believe the inspectors must pursue their work in Iraq," he said in a statement.

The reports by UN inspection team chief Hans Blix and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei "are of a provisional nature, and no further decision is necessary for the continuation of their work," he said.

Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov said it would be wrong to regard the delivery of the reports as "the final limit for the international inspectors." "UN Security Council resolution 1441 does not set any time limit for international inspections in Iraq," he said referring to a November resolution mandating weapons inspections.

"They should continue for as long as it takes" to clarify whether the Iraqis are obeying UN resolutions, he said.

Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, Sergei Lavrov, said meanwhile that political and diplomatic resources for resolving the Iraqi crisis were "far from exhausted." "The inspectors have done excellent work in two months, and I think they must be given the possibility of completing their task.

Only then should we consider the next step," Lavrov said in an interview with the daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

"The Iraqi authorities are not creating any obstacles to the inspectors' work. And even if there are some questions to be answered, there's hope that Baghdad will give the answers. In view of the objective facts, there is currently no reason for a military operation," he said.

Lavrov, who was later Monday to attend the UN Security Council meeting that would receive the Blix and ElBaradei reports, said he feared that the US and British military build-up in the Gulf could take the situation "past the point of no return." For Russian media in general Monday, a US decision on attacking Iraq had already been taken and nothing the UN weapons inspectors could say would deflect Washington from that course.

"The Americans will enter Iraq whatever (the inspectors) report," the daily Kommersant said, adding that the situation was now "out of UN control." Russia, along with France and China, is insisting on a diplomatic solution to the standoff over Iraq's supposed arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.

The United States and Britain maintain that Iraq is in material breach of the UN resolution ordering it to disarm, and are preparing for military action in the coming weeks.

All five countries possess veto power in the UN Security Council.

Defence experts say the United States military build-up in the Gulf region will be completed around the end of February - Sapa-AFP.

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