"No one is doubting the role and importance of the United Nations as a central organization on questions of guaranteeing world peace and security," Ivanov said after meeting Tajik President Emomali Rakhmonov in the Tajikistan capital Dushanbe.

"We are sure it will play the same central role in the reconstruction of postwar Iraq," he said.

Ivanov added that Iraq "for the large part, is already suffering through a humanitarian catastrophe," arguing that both coalition members and the United Nations must take part in relief efforts.

"The coalition forces carry a large burden of responsibility for the humanitarian situation" in postwar Iraq, Ivanov said.

He added that "everyone in the world must take measures to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe in Iraq."

Russia, France and Germany -- the main opponents to the US-led war -- have been arguing for the United Nations to play a key role in reconstructing Iraq, but lucrative contracts have so far only been handed out to US firms.

The United States has also played down the countries' insistence that the immediate administration of postwar Iraq fall under UN auspices.

Putin was due to meet French President Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder in Russia's second city of Saint Petersburg later Friday for talks on the three countries' role in postwar Iraq.

"The United Nations is endowed with unique powers which no other world or regional organizations have," Ivanov said in Dushanbe, where he was due to join other foreign ministers from the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) for talks on regional security.

"These powers must be used as quickly as possible to find the means of finding a political solution to the situation in Iraq," he said.

"This is in the interest of the Iraqi people and the stability of the whole region," Ivanov said.

SPACE.WIRE