Dutch Agriculture Minister Cees Veerman has ordered farms to keep all poultry indoors during the bird migration season to minimize the risk of an outbreak of bird flu in the Netherlands.

Farms will have to keep their poultry in sheds until the end of the year and perhaps longer, reported online newsletter Expatica on Tuesday.

The regulation only applies to commercially-farmed birds and not to hobby poultry because the ministry believes the latter poses a "much smaller risk."

Veerman is to meet representatives of the commercial poultry industry and the European Union (EU) executive European Commission before deciding when the outdoor ban comes into effect on farms.

Earlier on Tuesday, Russia warned that an outbreak of the H5N1 strain of bird flu recently identified in the Urals city of Chelyabinsk could spread to Europe and the Middle East, as migratory birds move into warmer areas before winter after nesting in Siberia.

There are tens of millions of chickens and other poultry in Dutch farms.

(Xinhua News Agency August 17, 2005)