Iraq Calls for Direct Talks With Tehran

BAGHDAD, Iraq — The Iraqi government proposed Wednesday that the United Nations arrange direct talks with Iran to work out the details of a cease-fire in the Persian Gulf War, and Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar announced that a team will leave “immediately” for Baghdad and Tehran.

In Tehran, the supreme leader of Iran, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, told his countrymen that although he had decided to accept a U.N. call for a cease-fire, it was “worse than drinking poison.”

“I submit myself to God’s will,” Khomeini added, “and drink this drink for his satisfaction.”

Perez de Cuellar said that the U.N. team will be in the region no more than a week and that its report should enable him to fix dates for the cease-fire to go into effect, for withdrawing troops and exchanging war prisoners, and for starting talks on a comprehensive peace.

Iraq called on Perez de Cuellar to act just 24 hours after President Ali Khamenei of Iran advised the secretary general that it had accepted the terms of U.N. Security Council Resolution 598, which calls for a cease-fire in the nearly 8-year-old war.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz told Perez de Cuellar that it is necessary to determine whether Iran is being “serious or tactical” and asked him to arrange a meeting between representatives of the two countries “as soon as possible.”

Direct Talks Rejected

He suggested holding an opening round of talks with Iran at U.N. headquarters to be followed by detailed discussions in Tehran and Baghdad. He referred to “formal and direct talks,” but Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammed Mahallati, told reporters in New York that his government “will not accept direct talks.”

In his statement, broadcast by Tehran Radio, Khomeini said that the nation’s political leaders had urged him to end the war and that he had decided to comply. He said he could not provide any details of their reasoning.

Previously, Khomeini had refused to listen to any talk of peace. “I had promised to fight to the last drop of my blood and to my last breath,” he said Wednesday, referring to his earlier vows to topple the government of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

“Today’s decision is based on the interests of the Islamic republic and the advice of senior military and political leaders of the country in whose faith and wisdom I trust.”

Admission of Failure

His decision was virtually an admission of failure. In a telling aside, he ordered the Iranian news media not to “discuss the whys and why-nots of the decision.”

In a reference to Muslim doctrine that guarantees passage to heaven for those who die for a just cause, he stressed that the war has been “good for the people who were martyred and good for those whose children were martyred.”

Skepticism had been expressed abroad about Iran’s motives in accepting the cease-fire resolution, and in response to it the ayatollah said bluntly, “Our aim is not a new tactic to continue the war.”

Despite continued fighting--Iran said Wednesday that its forces had repulsed Iraqi ground offensives, and a military spokesman in Baghdad said that Iraqi warplanes had attacked oil pumping stations in southwestern Iran--the Iraqi proposal for peace talks seemed to indicate that Hussein’s government is willing to give serious consideration to ending the war. The Iraqi proposal to Perez de Cuellar goes considerably beyond Resolution 598, which was adopted on July 20, 1987.

Details of Resolution

The resolution calls for an immediate cease-fire on all fronts to be followed by a pullback to the internationally recognized frontier, an exchange of prisoners of war and establishment of an “impartial body” to assess responsibility for starting the war.

The Iraqi proposal calls for:

-- Direct talks between Iraq and Iran.

-- Clearing the Shatt al Arab, the waterway at the north end of the Persian Gulf that forms part of the boundary between the two countries. It has been closed since the early days of the war, with about 75 ships trapped in it.

-- Guaranteeing Iraqi rights of navigation in the gulf.

-- Turning any differences in negotiations over to the United Nations.

-- Iran to refrain from attacking neutral shipping in the territorial waters of other states in the gulf and in international shipping lanes.

The last point was apparently made for the benefit of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, two of Iraq’s closest allies and largest benefactors. Ships of both countries have been attacked by Iranian gunboats in retaliation for Iraqi air strikes against Iranian shipping.

It was not immediately clear whether Iraq intends that its initiative be made a part of the Security Council resolution or whether it is intended as a supplementary proposal.

In Washington, the State Department reacted to Perez de Cuellar’s announcement with a call for both sides to show restraint while the U.N. mission takes place.

“We are delighted with this news that the Secretary General is moving rapidly to implement U.N. Resolution 598,” State Department spokeswoman Phyllis Oakley told reporters. “We fully support his mission.”

Pressure on Baghdad

Iraq is believed to have made its proposal after coming under heavy pressure from the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, to respond positively to the Iranian initiative of the day before.

Iraq had accepted the terms of the Security Council resolution soon after it was adopted last year. But it reneged three months later after Iran failed to give a concrete reply.

For the past several months Hussein has emphasized that Resolution 598 was the only basis for a solution to the conflict. Yet when Iran finally accepted it, Iraq seemed dumbfounded.

“The Iranians called the Iraqi bluff, and it caught the Iraqis with their pants down,” a Western diplomat said. “The Iraqis didn’t exactly reject the Iranian acceptance, but they came dangerously close.”

The war began in September, 1980, when Iraqi troops crossed into Iran after the Tehran regime abrogated a 1975 treaty with Baghdad and claimed full sovereignty over the Shatt al Arab.

In the eight years since, about 500,000 people have been killed on each side and an equal number wounded. Some estimates put the amount of damage as high as $330 billion.

Drain on Manpower

For Iran, the drain on manpower and economic resources has increased sharply in recent months. In April the Iraqis began a series of successful offensives that pushed the Iranians out of virtually all the Iraqi territory they had held for years.

“My sons at the front,” Khomeini said Wednesday, “I know you are suffering, and it is hard for you. But is it not hard also for your old father? Take it (the suffering), because God is with you.”

Then, returning to his customary rhetoric, he said: “I warn all systems in America and in Europe to get out of the Persian Gulf before it is too late and you are caught in the quagmire of death.”

Western analysts said the Khomeini speech helped strengthen Iranian political leaders such as Hashemi Rafsanjani, the powerful Speaker of Parliament.