Iraq Admits Chemical Weapons Use--After Iran

Iraq’s foreign minister admitted Friday that his country had used chemical weapons in the Persian Gulf War, but only in retaliation against Iran which he said had used them first.

“I am a frank man. I can say that such weapons were used in the conflict. The Iranians started the use. The Iranians were the invaders of Iraq,” Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz told a news conference at the end of a three-day visit to West Germany.

Diplomats said it was the first time Iraq had admitted publicly that it had used chemical weapons in the seven-year-old war. Iran has consistently accused its enemy of their use.

Used ‘by Both Sides’

“We believe that every nation has a right to protect itself from invasion. The means might be controversial--there are differences to this matter from different angles,” Aziz continued.

Repeatedly pressed to repeat his statement, Aziz said: “Sometimes such weapons were used in the bloody war. By both sides.

“It was a very complicated, bloody conflict. It has to be judged within the circumstances and the facts,” he added.

Aziz said Iran was responsible for starting the war by shelling Iraqi coastal towns and attacking its shipping. However, the two countries have long been at odds over their borders and control of the Shatt al Arab waterway, and Iraq triggered the conflict in September, 1980, by invading Iran’s Khuzistan province.

Aziz called on Iran to firmly accept a U.N. Security Council resolution, adopted unanimously in July, 1987, calling for a cease-fire.

War ‘Still Main Path’

“The failure of Iran to accept the resolution means that Iran has not made the choice to accept a peaceful settlement to the conflict,” Aziz said. “They have unequivocally said that the path of war is still the main path for Iran.”

Aziz said he had made these points during talks in Bonn over the past two days with Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher.

Genscher has frequently met his Iranian counterpart, Ali Akbar Velayati, and last year indirectly accused Iraq of using chemical weapons and starting the war.

In Tehran, meanwhile, Iranian President Ali Khamenei, stressing that Iranian leaders are not tired of war, vowed Friday that Iran would strike back for recent Iraqi victories.

“This time, we will force the enemy down to its knees as we did before by relying on the Almighty and the power of people’s faith in Islam,” the Iranian news agency IRNA quoted him as saying.

But political analysts said a series of recent Iraqi victories, Baghdad’s first since the early days of the war in 1980, had raised questions among Iranians about whether an Iranian military victory is possible.