The Russian Foreign Minister, Mr Yevgeny Primakov, said yesterday it was still not clear whether diplomatic efforts could resolve the crisis with Iraq over UN weapons inspections.
"I don't think that we can yet say firmly that the option of a diplomatic solution has won," Mr Primakov told Russian public television. "It is proving very difficult to push it through."
"But in any case Russia will do its utmost to avoid a military outcome, which is fraught with very serious negative consequences," he said.
Moscow, which had close economic ties with Iraq during the Soviet era, has taken a leading role in trying to mediate in the crisis which arose when Iraq blocked the inspectors from visiting sites suspected of containing weapons of mass destruction.
A special Russian envoy now in Baghdad, Deputy Foreign Minister, Mr Viktor Posuvalyuk, was in contact with the Iraqi leadership several times yesterday, Mr Primakov said.
Mr Primakov, a Middle East expert said to be on friendly terms with President Saddam Hussein, said Moscow was working on a plan to show that Baghdad was taking measures to comply with UN demands on weapons inspections.
He said Russia was in close contact with the main Western nations. He said he received and replied to a message from the US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, earlier yesterday and consulted President Yeltsin yesterday evening.
Mr Primakov said there were still disagreements among UN Security Council members.
Mr Yeltsin said on Thursday he believed the worst was over in the Iraq crisis but issued his second warning in two days that a military strike on Iraq could lead to world war.
Russian MPs yesterday accepted an invitation to visit so-called Iraqi presidential sites suspected of hiding weapons of mass destruction and suggested their US counterparts join the visit.
The acceptance was announced by the parliamentary chairman, Mr Gennady Seleznev, who asked each political group in the Duma to select two deputies for the delegation which will leave Moscow for Baghdad tomorrow.
In extending the invitation to the Russian deputies, the speaker of the Iraqi National Assembly, Mr Saadun Hammadi, said the visit would help establish the truth about US claims that Iraq was producing and storing chemical and biological weapons in its presidential palaces.
Two Marine Corps F/A-18 fighters collided yesterday over the Gulf as they returned from a mission enforcing a no-fly zone over southern Iraq, military officials said. The pilot of one aircraft was killed, they said.
"One pilot has died and another is in good condition in the apparent mid-air collision of two Marine Corps F/A-18 Hornet jets over the Arabian Gulf," a Fifth Fleet spokesman said.
The F/A-18 fighters operating off the carrier USS George Washington apparently collided shortly before 8 p.m. local time Navy Commander Gordon Hume said.