Islam Summit Opens With Appeal for Iran-Iraq Peace

Kuwait’s ruler today opened the fifth Islamic summit conference with an appeal for peace among its members, particularly warring Iran and Iraq.

U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar also was in Kuwait today, hoping that talks with Islamic leaders at the three-day summit will lead to new avenues for peace in the Persian Gulf War.

But Iran boycotted the summit, and its state media reported that Tehran will not abide by any resolutions approved by the summit about its 6 1/2-year war with Iraq.

Kuwaiti Sheik Jabbar al Ahmed al Sabah opened the 46-member conference by saying the Iraq-Iran conflict raging only 60 miles north of his country’s border is “one of the main preoccupations of the Islamic world.”

He said the two nations should put aside their differences because “the rivals are in fact brothers and their father is one god.”

After the opening session, the conference went into closed deliberations to discuss an overwhelming 40-item agenda including such thorny issues as the gulf war, the sale of arms to Iran and the distinction between international terrorism and liberation movements.

Islamic Conference officials said Perez de Cuellar met with Turkish President Kenan Evren and Pakistani leader Gen. Zia ul-Haq for talks on the latest escalation of the conflict. He also conferred with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz and his Egyptian counterpart, Esmat Abdel Meguid.

Evren and Zia were members of a nine-nation good-will mission set up by the conference in 1981 to seek a peaceful end to the gulf war.

Last week, Perez de Cuellar proposed an urgent meeting of U.N. Security Council foreign ministers to discuss Iran’s Jan. 9 incursion into Iraq and increased attacks by the two combatants on commercial shipping in the gulf.