Gorbachev OKs Joint Steps to Put End to Iran-Iraq War

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev has sent President Reagan a letter endorsing joint superpower action to end the Iran-Iraq War and agreeing to discussions in “any format,” a Kremlin official said today.

However, Gorbachev criticized the growing U.S. naval buildup in the Persian Gulf as one of the chief causes of tension in the region, said Boris Pyadyshev, the deputy Foreign Ministry spokesman.

“An enormous amount of U.S. naval power is concentrated in a limited space,” Pyadyshev said. “This concentration of naval forces is devoid of all sense and could be a detonator for a major conflict.”

On Monday, the Soviet Union joined the United States as the U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a resolution demanding an end to the Iran-Iraq War.

Pyadyshev lauded the resolution and said its implementation “could bring peace to the region.”

He said Gorbachev wrote Reagan concerning the gulf in reply to a letter Reagan sent on the same topic. Pyadyshev gave no additional details.

Pyadyshev said the Soviet leader told Reagan “there are prerequisites, and not bad ones, for joint actions by the U.S.S.R. and U.S.A. at the Security Council for putting an end speedily to the conflict . . . on fair terms.”

Asked whether Gorbachev had suggested forming a superpower force to police the gulf under U.N. auspices, Pyadyshev said: “We could only make guesses about such an eventuality. In practical terms, nothing was said about those measures.”

The spokesman said the Soviet Union now has three minesweepers and one frigate in the Persian Gulf but will be ready to withdraw the warships if other foreign powers including the United States also do so.

On July 3, the Soviet Union proposed the withdrawal of all foreign military vessels from the strategic waterway.