MOSCOW, January 27 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Only hours before UN inspections were supposed to deliver their key report on Iraq, Russian President and Key EU members voiced their support for the extension of inspectors' mission, as Iraq urged UN inspectors to be "fair" in their arms report.

With UN weapons inspectors poised Monday, January 27, 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, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.

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.

For his part, 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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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 alleged weapons of mass destruction.

The United States and Britain insist that Iraq is in material breach of the UN resolution ordering it to disarm, and are preparing for military action in the coming weeks with or without UN authorization.

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

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

A similar message was delivered from Brussels, as the European Union Monday welcomed UN weapons inspectors' intention to intensify their operations in Iraq, demanding Iraqi compliance without delay.

Meeting hours ahead of a crucial report by Blix, EU foreign ministers said Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had a "final opportunity" to end the current crisis without war.

The EU Council of Ministers restated its full support for the inspectors. "It welcomes their intention to continue and intensify their operations," according to a statement released during the Brussels talks.

UN Security Council resolution 1441, which mandated the inspections in November, "gives an unambiguous message that the Iraqi government has a final opportunity to resolve the crisis peacefully," the statement said.

"The Council underlines the fundamental importance of preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in accordance with the relevant international instruments. The Security Council has a key role to play in these endeavors," it added.

The statement was agreed by the 15 EU member states, including the four who currently sit on the UN Security Council -- Britain, France, Germany and Spain.

"This is a very clear message to Iraq," said a diplomat from Britain, the staunchest supporter of U.S. threats of war against Iraq.

In Baghdad, Iraq called Monday on UN chief weapons inspectors to be fair and factual in their report to the Security Council on Baghdad's compliance with the disarmament process.

"I hope they will be fair ... and they will present the facts as they are on the ground," Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said.

"We have greatly cooperated ... and if the leadership of the inspection process is fair, that should be reported to the Security Council," Sabri told a press conference at the information ministry in Baghdad.

"The inspectors have visited 490 sites in Iraq, offices, presidential palaces, mosques, universities, hospital, factories and military sites, and they have met with dozens of Iraqi specialists," Sabri said.

"All that could not have been accomplished without good cooperation from the Iraqi side. What more could we do? What more could a country attacked in the north and south (in no-fly zones) and which authorizes more than 100 inspectors to foul more than 490 sites, including military ones?" he asked.

"Despite Iraq's acceptance of the resumption of inspections and resolution 1441, this vile (U.S.) administration and its ally (British Prime Minister Tony) Blair continued their threats and psychological campaign against Iraq.

"Their sole goal is not the so-called weapons of mass destruction - because there are none - but to occupy and colonize this country to get their hands on its oil," Sabri said.

The minister also denied Iraq had any links to al-Qaeda network.

"Iraq has no links at all with terrorist ... organizations," Sabri said.

In an attempt to justify U.S. insistence to attack Iraq, White House chief of staff Andrew Card on Sunday, January 26, claimed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is linked to the al-Qaeda structure.

Meanwhile, international opposition to the upcoming U.S. attack against Iraq continued to increase around the world.

Pakistan said Monday the Iraqi crisis should be resolved "without the use of force."

"We want the matter to be resolved peacefully and amicably because hostilities will cause loss of innocent lives which we do not want to happen," foreign ministry spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan told a weekly press briefing.

Pakistani Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali is currently on a tour of five Gulf states to discuss ways of averting military action threatened by the United States. Khan said Iraq was at the center of Jamali's talks with leaders in the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar.

Pakistan has been a key ally of the U.S. in its 15-month campaign against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan, but appears unlikely to back Washington in any attack not sanctioned by the UN.

Public sentiments in the Islamic republic of 145 million people are largely against any U.S. attack on Iraq. There have been several protests this month against such an attack.

In Sanaa, tens of thousands of Yemenis, chanting slogans hostile to the United States, took to the streets of Sanaa Monday to protest a possible U.S.-led war against Iraq.

"Down with Zionist crimes!", "No to war, yes to peace!", "No to regime change by force!", the crowd chanted.

Yemen's parliament speaker Sheikh Abdullah al-Ahmar, who heads the Al-Islah Islamist group, said before the protest that the U.S. administration was only after Iraq's oil.

"It's sad to see the U.S. administration become a toy in the hands of a band of Zionists," he said.

"If there were a U.S. strike on Iraq, all the other (Arabs) will be harmed despite their concessions and good relations" with Washington, he said, urging Yemenis to "continue their protests and rejection of U.S. policy towards Iraq."

The protestors marched to the UN office in the Yemeni capital, where they delivered a message on the "region's concerns about Israeli actions in Palestine and the dispatch of (U.S.) warships to the Gulf."

Chirac and Schroeder, both against war

Organizers of the Aachen peace prize in western Germany, which has been awarded annually since 1988 to "ordinary people" working for peace and not celebrities, also launched an appeal Monday against an attack on Baghdad.