Decision on Gulf Response Made: Reagan : No Details Given; Iran Reports New U.N. Peace Effort

As Iran reported a new U.N. effort to arrange a cease-fire in the seven-year-old Iran-Iraq War, President Reagan told reporters Sunday that he has reached a decision on how to respond to Tehran’s attacks on U.S.-flagged vessels in the Persian Gulf. But he gave no details.

The Iranian move took the form of an announcement that U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar will return to the war-racked region to try again to reach a cease-fire formula acceptable to both belligerents. Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Ali Mohammed Besharati, reported the plan in an interview with the official Iranian news agency.

According to Besharati, Perez de Cuellar has been given “new elbow room” by the U.N. Security Council in his efforts to arrange implementation of Council Resolution 598, which was adopted July 20 and calls for an immediate cease-fire in the Persian Gulf conflict.

No U.N. Confirmation

There was no immediate confirmation from the United Nations that Perez de Cuellar has scheduled another trip to the Middle East.

Reagan commented during a brief exchange with reporters as he returned to the White House following a visit to his wife, who is recuperating from surgery at the Bethesda Naval Medical Center. Asked if he planned to make a decision this week on options for dealing with Iran, he grinned broadly and replied, “I’ve made it.”

Reagan turned down requests for amplification, observing, “If I told you, then they (the Iranians) would know.”

Late Sunday, the President conferred with a group of congressional leaders at the White House, presumably about U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf, wire services reported. CBS News reported that the group included House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.) and Rep. Thomas Foley (D-Wash.)

No White House Comment

However, White House spokeswoman Liz Murphy refused to comment on the reported meeting or confirm that it even took place.

The reported U.N. peace feelers are taking place against a background of heightened tension following an Iranian missile attack Friday against a Kuwaiti tanker flying the U.S. flag. The ship was hit by a Silkworm missile fired from Iranian-held territory in Iraq’s Faw Peninsula and raised the possibility of American retaliation.

Iraq immediately accepted the U.N. cease-fire proposal in July but resumed its air war against Iran six weeks later after Iran refused to publicly take a position on the resolution.

Perez de Cuellar visited Baghdad and Tehran in September but was unable to get the two belligerents to accept the truce.

Besharati said the U.N. chief will visit Tehran and Baghdad “shortly,” but he gave no date for the trip.

Reagan, who warned in his weekly radio address Saturday that actions against U.S.-flagged vessels in the Persian Gulf “will be dealt with appropriately,” met last Friday with his National Security Planning Group to discuss options for dealing with the Iranian attacks.

To Try Diplomacy First

According to advance copies of this week’s Newsweek magazine released Sunday, the President and his advisers agreed that the Administration would seek first to use diplomacy to isolate and punish Iran. It was agreed, the report said, that any military action should be “a proportionate and measured response,” modeled on the retaliatory attack launched by U.S. bombers against Libya in April, 1986. That attack, on five targets in Tripoli and Benghazi, was in response to a series of incidents attributed to Libyan terrorists.

The President directed that any military action should be directly related to Iranian aggression and be conducted at minimum risk to American lives but still be perceived as a demonstration of power and political will, Newsweek said. At the same time, according to the magazine, the action must be acceptable to U.S. allies and defensible before the United Nations.

The priority given to diplomacy suggests an awareness by the Reagan Administration that a Libya-style military action would have political consequences, both in the Persian Gulf, where friendly governments fear the war could spread, and in Congress, where Reagan is already resisting Democratic-led efforts to apply the War Powers Resolution to the U.S. peacekeeping effort in the gulf.

United Press International quoted Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III as predicting more meetings on the crisis in the gulf this week, adding that the White House has been briefing key members of Congress on developments.

Howard H. Baker Jr., the White House chief of staff, confirmed in an appearance on “John McLaughlin’s One on One,” which was aired Sunday but taped Friday, that the options were already before the President, but he declined any further discussion of the topic.

Maintaining that the Administration is doing no more than following its predecessors in defending freedom of the seas, Baker denied that the United States is “fighting Iraq’s war against Iran.”

May Be Softening Demand

Iran has hinted in the past that it is willing to consider softening its demand for the ouster of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein as a condition for ending the war. It has also demanded payment of billions of dollars in war reparations.

In his statement to the Islamic Republic News Agency, Besharati went further than Iran has in the past in setting forth its conditions for a cease-fire and a negotiated settlement.

“If the U.N. Security Council on the basis of existing documents is willing to condemn Iraq as the initiator of the war, Iran would be ready to accept a de facto cease-fire on condition that simultaneously a court be held to brand Iraq as the aggressor,” Besharati said.

The U.N. resolution contains a provision, included at Iran’s request, to convene an inquiry into the causes of the war. But as now written, the tribunal would convene after a cease-fire was adopted.

Condemnation of Iraq Sought

In the IRNA interview, Iran appeared to be insisting that Iraq be condemned as the “initiator” of the conflict before a cease-fire and before an inquiry begins to determine the “aggressor.”

Historically, there is little dispute that the war began in September, 1980, when Iraqi troops crossed the Shatt al Arab waterway into Iran. But their common frontier, of which the Shatt al Arab forms a part, has been disputed for centuries, and Iraq says that the initial cause of the war was harassment from Iran.

There had been hopes in the United Nations that both sides would agree to a de facto cease-fire while a commission studies the war. Such a process, never spelled out in detail, could take months.

‘Political Solutions’ Possible

Besharati was quoted as saying that “Iran has never ruled out political solutions to end the war, which include principal viewpoints of Iran concerning trial of the aggressor.”

But Iran has not said it would accept the outcome of a tribunal if it does not agree with Iran’s position.

Besharati accused the United States of having “thwarted” Perez de Cuellar’s past peace efforts.

In the kind of saber-rattling that has become a fixture of Iranian propaganda, the official warned that “Iran has decided to make the remainder of Reagan’s term in office the most bitter period of his political life.”

In another development, Iran announced that it has signed an agreement with the Soviet Union in which Moscow will provide refined oil products to Tehran in exchange for 100,000 barrels a day of Iranian crude oil.

Iran-Soviet Pipeline

Iranian Oil Minister Gholamreza Aghazadeh, returning home after a three-day visit, also said the two sides agreed to conduct feasibility studies for a pipeline to carry Iranian crude oil to the Black Sea through Soviet territory.

The announcement, if confirmed by Moscow, will undoubtedly inflame Iraq and its Arab supporters.

Using Soviet military equipment, Iraq has been trying for the past three years to force Iran to the negotiating table by cutting its oil export capacity. It is because of Iraqi air raids that Iran needs to import refined oil products, such as it will now do from the Soviet Union.

In recent weeks, the Soviet Union has appeared to be moving closer to Iran by offering economic relations, as well as blocking U.S. efforts to impose an arms embargo through a vote in the the Security Council.

Charles P. Wallace reported from Manama, Bahrain, and Don Irwin reported from Washington.