"Mr Putin will ... be arriving this evening," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told a weekly news briefing.

Russia's Interfax news agency reported on Sunday evening, citing unnamed sources, that Mr Putin had been warned by his special services of a possible plot to assassinate him during a visit to Tehran this week.

The Kremlin said Mr Putin had been briefed on the reports but the Russian leader, now visiting Germany, has not yet commented himself. Russian state television channels repeated the reports on Monday.

Kremlin deputy spokesman Dmitry Peskov, in Tehran ahead of Mr Putin's scheduled arrival, quashed rumours Mr Putin would cancel his visit.

"According to the schedule, the President is coming tonight. We have no information that he is changing his plans," he said.

Mr Putin, arriving in Germany on Sunday night for talks likely to cover tensions over Iran's nuclear program, waved a hand dismissively when asked about the plot report and told reporters "later".

Iran dismissed as baseless the Interfax report that suicide bombers were preparing an attack on the President.

It described the allegation as "psychological warfare" calculated by Tehran's enemies - an apparent reference to Western powers - to undermine Russian-Iranian relations. © 2007 Australian Broadcasting Corporation