Iran Accepts U.N.’s Terms on Iraq Truce : U.S. Calls Move Big Breakthrough to Peace in Area

The White House, expressing virtually unguarded optimism, said Monday that Iran’s move toward a cease-fire in its war with Iraq is “a major breakthrough” and “an important first step” to peace in the Persian Gulf.

“It opens the way for an end to the eight-year tragic war and restoration of stability in a troubled region of the world,” White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said.

He also held out the possibility that the end of hostilities would bring an end to the controversial U.S. escorting of Kuwaiti tankers in the gulf--although he said that seems “quite a ways off.”

“It certainly is a hopeful sign. This is the first concrete sign we’ve had that the threat might diminish” in the gulf, Fitzwater said, speaking at a briefing in Santa Barbara, where President Reagan is taking a weeklong vacation at his California ranch.

Skepticism Lacking

Although Fitzwater said U.S. officials still must determine whether Iran’s announced acceptance of a cease-fire “is real or not,” the White House reaction reflected none of the skepticism that has greeted previous Iranian statements about resolving the gulf conflict.

At the State Department in Washington, officials said that they tentatively consider the Iranian overture authentic. Iran’s formal acceptance of a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire was contained in a letter from Iranian President Ali Khamenei to U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar.

“We’re taking the statement of the government of Iran at face value,” State Department spokeswoman Phyllis Oakley said. But she said it is too early to judge whether this move, by itself, will lead to improved relations between Iran and the United States, which broke diplomatic ties in 1979 after the seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran.

Factors Prompting Change

Another State Department official said Iran’s abrupt change in policy, following many months of angry demands for anti-Iraq preconditions to any U.N. settlement, was prompted by a number of factors.

“They could see that things weren’t going their way at the U.N.,” said the official, who asked not to be identified. “They weren’t getting a resolution condemning the United States (for the American downing of an Iranian airliner July 3). They’ve been suffering reverses in the war. They may have been afraid that Iraq might go across the border and start seizing territory again. They haven’t been getting the kind of support from the people that the war had before. . . .

“And arms have been scarcer than before; our intelligence has been picking up contracts as soon as they were signed and stopping some deals before the weapons were ever shipped,” the official asserted.

Caught by Surprise

The Iranian announcement caught officials who accompanied President Reagan to California by surprise. The President was informed of the Iranian letter by his national security adviser, Lt. Gen. Colin L. Powell.

Fitzwater said it may be days before the United States has “a good understanding of what’s happening” and weeks before a cease-fire is implemented.

“This is not something that’s going to occur overnight,” he said.

The United States and other nations have been pressing Iran for a year to accept the U.N. cease-fire resolution and move toward a negotiated settlement of the war. Iraq had agreed to comply if Iran would. The resolution, approved by the Security Council on July 20, 1987, calls on both nations to halt the fighting, withdraw their forces to internationally recognized boundaries and exchange prisoners of war. It also asks Perez de Cuellar to send U.N. observers to supervise the truce.

The White House said it is eager for more signs that the peace process is finally under way.

Motives Obscure

“It’s very difficult to determine all of the motives that might be behind this move,” said Fitzwater. “Word of it comes from the military arm of the government, and there certainly is a lot that we don’t know at this time.”

Nevertheless, Fitzwater took the unusual step of allowing television cameras to film his briefing during a presidential vacation, making clear the Administration’s upbeat assessment.

Administration officials, though handicapped by the lack of authoritative U.S. contacts with Iran, said that there have been hints of an impending shift toward compromise by the regime, including its relatively restrained criticism of the United States after the airliner attack.

“One has to believe that the recent losses that Iran has experienced at the hand of Iraq has been a point that they’ve had to consider,” Fitzwater said.

An Unwinnable War

Noted Shireen Hunter, a former Iranian diplomat now affiliated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington: “The Iran-Iraq War has increasingly come to be viewed as war between Iran and the United States, and the feeling is that Iran cannot win a war against the United States.”

She said that if a cease-fire takes hold and the Iran-Iraq War actually ends, the United States could begin to reduce its military presence in the region, which now includes 27 Navy warships and nearly 20,000 servicemen.

But, she noted, “it will be a slow process--and it should be a slow process.”

The United States has maintained a military presence in the gulf for nearly four decades, basing a flagship of the U.S. Navy’s Mideast Force in the oil-rich region.

The Navy’s role has been vastly increased in the last year as warships have begun escorting reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers to prevent Iranian attacks. Times staff writers Doyle McManus and John M. Broder in Washington contributed to this story.