PARIS -- French President Jacques Chirac urged Iraq on Saturday to comply with UN weapons inspections, which he said would clear up any doubt over whether President Saddam Hussein was harboring weapons of mass destruction.

Speaking at a news conference after agreeing an aid package for Lebanon, Chirac added war would not be in anyone's interest.

"I hope that everyone is aware that war is always the worst of solutions, and that it is in nobody's interest," he said as carried by Reuters.

Chirac said Iraq must cooperate with the arms inspectors who have returned to the country after a four-year absence to search for and eliminate any nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. "The Iraqi authorities must understand that they can no longer remain in a situation where there is doubt about their possession of weapons of mass destruction," Chirac said. "So it is essential and indispensable that they accept the necessary checks."

His call was reinforced by the Russian and Chinese foreign ministers, who also said after a meeting in Moscow on Saturday that Iraq must fulfill its commitments to allow UN inspectors to search for any weapons of mass destruction.

On Friday, Chirac said it was up to the United Nations and not U.S. President George W. Bush to define any "material breach" by Iraq of a Security Council resolution seeking its disarmament.

Bush said earlier in the week that if Iraq denied possessing banned weapons in a statement it is due to make to the United Nations by December 8, this would be a lie that would trigger "the severest consequences".

The United States maintains that Iraq is concealing weapons of mass destruction despite a prohibition on them imposed after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Chirac said he hoped Iraq had no such weapons, but added that if it did, they must be destroyed. "What I hope is that these inspections show that there are no weapons of mass destruction (in Iraq), although if there are, they are destroyed," he said. "On that basis, I hope there will be no reason for war," he added. "I am by nature optimistic."

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov also warned Saturday that the world would not rid itself of terrorism just by forcing a regime change in Baghdad, as Washington kept up pressure against Saddam Hussein.

"The international community must understand that it will not settle the problem of terrorism simply by settling the problem of Iraq," Ivanov said after a meeting in Moscow with the diplomatic chiefs of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which groups Russia, China and four former Soviet republics in Central Asia. Ivanov's statement followed Friday's summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush, after which the two urged Iraq to "cooperate fully and unconditionally in its disarmament obligations or face serious consequences."

Their joint declaration was a restatement of terms laid down in the UN Security Council resolution on Iraq adopted on November 8. "Our goal is to make terrorists feel unsafe, wherever they may be," Ivanov said Saturday, stressing: "Weapons of mass destruction must not fall into their hands."

Russia fought, alongside France, against initial U.S. efforts to get the Security Council to authorize automatic recourse to force against Baghdad if it failed to cooperate with the UN.