U.S. Ready to Talk to Iran, Reagan Says : Asserts ‘It’s Time’ for Discussions on Freeing Hostages

President Reagan, reiterating his Administration’s policy of openness to new talks with Iran, said Monday that he is willing to talk with the government of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini about the release of American hostages in Lebanon.

Reagan was leaving a ceremony in the Rose Garden of the White House when a reporter asked him if he was “ready to talk to Iran about the hostages.”

“If they’re willing and ready to talk, it’s time,” the President replied.

At the United Nations, Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar said Monday that the foreign ministers of Iran and Iraq will begin indirect negotiations there Wednesday to establish a formal cease-fire ending the nearly eight-year-old war between their countries.

Cease-Fire Date Expected

Later in the day, the president of the Security Council, Brazilian Ambassador Paulo Nogueira-Batista, told reporters that Perez de Cuellar expects to be able to announce in 10 days a date for the start of a cease-fire.

Iran’s Ali Akbar Velayati arrived in New York on Monday afternoon, and Iraq’s Tarik Aziz was scheduled to arrive this morning. The two will not meet directly but will conduct what are called parallel talks, meeting separately with the secretary general, who will then try to reconcile their views.

Mohammed Mahallati, the Tehran regime’s U.N. ambassador, denied that Velayati has any plans to discuss American hostages. The foreign minister’s “only goal,” Mahallati said, is to confer with Perez de Cuellar and the Security Council on settling the war.

Most Stubborn Demand

Iran’s most stubborn demand has been for a U.N. condemnation of Iraq as the original aggressor, and that will undoubtedly be high on Velayati’s agenda. Iran also seeks a U.N. probe of its charges that Iraq has violated the 1925 Geneva Convention by waging chemical warfare, which the Security Council is currently investigating.

Reagan’s comment on the possibility of hostage talks appears to reflect increased hope among Administration officials that Iran may move soon toward a more normal relationship with the United States--and, at the same time, may put pressure on the pro-Iranian terrorists in Lebanon to release the nine American hostages they hold.

Longstanding Policy

Other officials warned, however, that there has been no indication that Khomeini’s government is willing to intercede on the hostages’ behalf.

They said Reagan’s comment was a reiteration of a longstanding U.S. policy of willingness to talk to other countries that might help free the hostages--without making any deals for their release.

“Our position remains the same: that we are always available to talk, any time, any place, about the safety or release of our hostages,” White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said. “But we will not negotiate for them.”

The issue is a sensitive one in the Reagan White House because of the arms-for-hostages deals negotiated in 1985 and 1986, in which Iranian officials helped free three hostages in exchange for the sale of sophisticated U.S. missiles.

‘Won’t Give or Take’

“We won’t negotiate, we won’t pay ransom, we won’t talk quid-pro-quos, we won’t give or take,” Fitzwater said. “The answer to the release of the hostages is to release them. . . . They took them off the streets; they can put them back on the streets.”

The United States has sent several messages to Iran in recent weeks reiterating its willingness to talk about better relations and pressing Iran to help win the release of the hostages and halt its support for terrorism, officials said.

Most of the messages have been informal and indirect, through other countries, one official said. In addition, a formal diplomatic note went to Tehran last week expressing U.S. approval of Iran’s decision to accept a U.N.-mediated cease-fire in the Persian Gulf War with Iraq.

A knowledgeable source with close ties to the Tehran government said the note also assured Iran that the United States would end its tilt toward Iraq if cease-fire talks move ahead.

Fitzwater said, however, that the formal note “did not go into the question of hostages or a new relationship.”

No Reply From Tehran

As of Monday afternoon, the United States had received no reply from Khomeini’s regime, a State Department spokesman said.

The indirect Iran-Iraq talks at the United Nations are under the terms of Security Council Resolution 598, adopted just over a year ago, calling for a cease-fire, withdrawal of troops to internationally recognized boundaries under U.N. supervision and an eventual permanent settlement of the conflict.

“My expectations are to start meetings on Wednesday, intensive meetings,” Perez de Cuellar said as he entered a closed-door meeting of the Security Council on Monday. Later that evening, he said on “The McNeill-Lehrer Report” that he expects the talks to last about a week.

No Face-to-Face Talks

Last week, Iran announced that it was willing to talk peace under the terms of U.N. Resolution 598, which Iraq had accepted in principle a year ago. Since Iran’s acceptance, the Iraqis have proposed face-to-face talks, but the Khomeini regime has been unwilling to accede to more than indirect talks.

Although Perez de Cuellar said last week that he hoped to have a formal cease-fire in place within a week or so, the prospect of such an early result was doubtful. Even should the talks succeed, the logistics of organizing a truce supervisory system will require urgent and extensive work by the peacekeeping bureaucracy of an impoverished United Nations.

“When you’ve had a war going on for eight years, you can’t just stop it by waving a handkerchief from a window,” Francois Giuliani, spokesman for Perez de Cuellar, told reporters. He said the dispatch of an advance party for the military observer team was delayed because the group had to travel to the Persian Gulf by commercial airline.

“The United Nations doesn’t have a plane it can send to the area with observers at the drop of a hat,” Giuliani said, adding that there also had been “major problems” with communications between U.N. headquarters and the war zone.

Size of the Problem

The size of the problem was outlined by George L. Sherry, former U.N. assistant secretary general for special political affairs, who spent nearly three decades working in peacekeeping operations before his 1985 retirement.

“The first thing you do is get to the front and get the order of battle (troop disposition) from each side,” explained Sherry, who now teaches diplomacy at Occidental College. Next, he said, observers must be posted at each army’s various field headquarters.

The observers must be experienced, he emphasized, meaning that the first contingent will probably be drawn from veteran U.N. observer groups such as those in the Middle East and along the Indian-Pakistani border.

Need Freedom of Movement

In order to detect truce violations, the observers must have freedom of movement and independent communications, Sherry added.

“The secretary general has to have the best information available so he can call in the head of the mission of the violator country and tell him it has to stop,” he said. “A cease-fire doesn’t hold by itself.”

The preliminary estimate is that at least 250 trained observers will be needed to cover both sides of the long military front which extends from the Persian Gulf to the mountains of the northern Iran-Iraq frontier. A key area will be the central front, east of Baghdad, which was the scene of fighting last week as Iraqi troops were reported to be recovering territory held by Iran.

Despite the impending U.N. talks, there appeared to be some continuing fighting Monday, with Iran saying it inflicted heavy losses on Iraqi troops in driving them back from regions seized by Iraq, wire services reported.

Hand-to-Hand Combat

Iranian Television, monitored in Nicosia, Cyprus, said the fighting developed into hand-to-hand battles at some points on the central front.

Iraq’s war report spoke mostly of withdrawals. The Baghdad military, which said Sunday that its forces had withdrawn voluntarily from southern Iran after an offensive launched Friday, announced that it would pull out today from towns seized on the central front.

“In order to encircle and destroy enemy forces, it was necessary to advance on one axis or another into Iranian territory,” an Iraqi military communique said Monday.

The communique repeated that Iraq had no designs on Iranian territory but wanted to regain all its land and capture Iranian prisoners ahead of the U.N. talks.

The Iranian government renewed a call for war volunteers Monday. President Ali Khamenei donned a military uniform and flew to the war zone over the weekend, asking fellow Muslim clergymen to join him at the front.

McManus reported from Washington and Shannon from the United Nations.