Russia warned the United States today it would be breaking international law if it went ahead with strikes against Iraq without UN approval.
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is considering whether to accept UN Security Council resolution 1441 ordering Baghdad to fully disarm.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Yury Fedotov said today: "I hope that in future they will not violate international law", referring to US bombing raids on Iraq in December 1998 which he described as "a clear violation of international law."
Those attacks "began during a UN debate on the Butler weapons inspections report," Mr Fedotov said, referring to the then chief UN weapons inspector Richard Butler.
After a stand-off between the weapons inspectors and Iraqi officials in December 1998, Mr Butler withdrew his inspectors and the United States and Britain bombed suspected weapons sites and other Iraqi military targets.
No weapons inspections have been carried out in Iraq since then.
Saddam last month agreed to allow the weapons inspectors to return to Iraq under pressure from the United States, which has proposed military action to ensure Baghdad fully renounces a program to acquire weapons of mass destruction.
Iraq's parliament yesterday rejected the UN resolution on disarmament, which was adopted by a unanimous vote by the 15 members of the Security Council last week.
Russia, which has strong economic interests in Iraq, and France fought furiously to make sure that the UN resolution did not include an automatic threat of the use of force should Saddam's regime come in conflict with weapons inspectors.
Mr Fedotov, Moscow's chief negotiator in the United Nations, said Russia was satisfied with the new draft's wording, even though he conceded that it has put added pressures on Saddam that did not exist in previous resolutions.
AFP