Iraq Eases Stand on Gulf Cease-Fire : Dropping Precondition of Direct Talks Clears Way for Truce Date With Iran

In a dramatic policy reversal, Iraq announced Saturday that it was dropping its demand for direct negotiations with Iran as a precondition to a cease-fire in the eight-year Persian Gulf War.

The announcement by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein appears to clear the way for U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar to set a date for the start of a truce within the next few days.

In New York, Perez de Cuellar cut short a weekend break for separate meetings at the United Nations with Iraqi Ambassador Ismat Kittani and Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati to seek agreement on a such a date.

Perez de Cuellar said Velayati would give him Iran’s official response to Iraq’s new proposal at a meeting this morning.

‘A Positive Statement’

In Washington, the Reagan Administration hailed Hussein’s move as “a positive statement . . . which moves the peace process forward.” State Department spokeswoman Anita Stockman said that “the secretary general is working with both parties on a comprehensive settlement consistent with (Security Council) Resolution 598, and we fully support his efforts.”

But officials also warned that the two countries have not yet agreed on all the details of how a cease-fire would be implemented.

Perez de Cuellar has been meeting in New York with the foreign ministers and other representatives of the two belligerents since Iran’s announcement July 18 that it accepted the Security Council’s demand for a cease-fire.

President Hussein’s statement Saturday, read on Iraqi television, said, “We extend a hand of friendship and peace to the people of Iran in spite of the bitterness we feel deep inside for the aggression that has afflicted us.”

The Iraqi leader said that he is ready to accept a cease-fire, provided that Iran “clearly, unequivocally and formally announces its willingness to enter into direct talks with Iraq immediately after the cease-fire,” according to an Iraqi news agency report from Baghdad.

While Iraq had accepted the U.N. initiative in July, 1987, after the Security Council adopted Resolution 598, Hussein added the demand for direct talks two weeks ago.

Iran rejected face-to-face negotiations as a precondition to a truce but said that it was prepared to hold direct talks after a cease-fire was implemented.

Tehran Radio reported Hussein’s announcement Saturday without comment.

Pullback to Border

Resolution 598, adopted by the Security Council on July 20, 1987, calls on Iran and Iraq to observe an immediate cease-fire, “withdraw all forces to the internationally recognized boundaries without delay,” exchange prisoners of war and support a U.N. mediation effort “to achieve a comprehensive, just and honorable settlement, acceptable to both sides, of all outstanding issues.” It also instructs the U.N. secretary general to send a team of observers to supervise the cease-fire, to organize a team of experts to plan reconstruction in both countries and to consider setting up an impartial tribunal to assess responsibility for the war.

The war began in September, 1980, when Iraqi troops crossed into Iran after the Tehran regime abrogated a 1975 treaty with Baghdad and claimed full sovereignty over the Shatt al Arab waterway, which makes up part of the border between the two countries.

President Hussein and other Iraqi officials said that they were seeking direct negotiations out of concern that Iran would use a cease-fire to rearm its shattered army and air force and resume the war at a later date. The nearly eight years of fighting has left an estimated 500,000 dead on each side.

In his statement Saturday, Hussein was quoted as saying that direct talks would be a “test of Iran’s intentions and whether its acceptance aims at a durable and comprehensive peace devoid of ambitions or schemes . . . or at easing elements of international and military pressure on them.”

He said that if Iran refuses to inform Baghdad through the United Nations that it now accepts direct talks after a cease-fire, “it will prove to the world and the Iranian people that it is responsible for further bloodshed and rejection of peace.”

Believed Genuine

A senior State Department official said in Washington that the Administration believes that Iraq’s announced policy shift Saturday is genuine, but he warned that the proclamation of a cease-fire will be only the first step in a long and complicated process of bringing the long war to an end.

“We assume this is the real thing,” he said. “We would expect the Iranians to accept the offer, because the idea of direct talks once the cease-fire begins is not a problem from their standpoint. Their concern has been the content of the talks.

“But it’s going to be a very slow and rocky process. Once the various aspects of Resolution 598 get fleshed out, they will turn out to be highly sensitive and contentious issues. There are eight paragraphs in that resolution, and that means eight unresolved problems between Iran and Iraq.”

Thorny Issue

Even the first step in a cease-fire--the disengagement of the two armies--raises a thorny issue, he said. “The resolution calls for a withdrawal of all forces to the internationally recognized boundaries--but nobody has agreed on what those boundaries are,” he said.

Indeed, one of the reasons the war broke out in 1980 was Iraq’s claim that the two countries’ border should be along the east bank of the Shatt al Arab, not down the middle of the estuary as Iran contends. In his statement Saturday, Hussein said that Iraq expects immediate navigation rights in the waterway.

“The question of navigation on the Shatt is going to come up as soon as the talks begin,” the State Department official said.

Iraq reportedly came under intense pressure from the permanent members of the Security Council, notably the United States and the Soviet Union, to fully accept the terms of Resolution 598.

Panel Meets on War

In addition, an Arab League committee on the war, which includes the foreign ministers of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, has been meeting with Iraqi leaders for the past week. It is widely believed that Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, which are Iraq’s primary source of foreign economic assistance, counseled Baghdad to accept the fixing of a truce date without further delay.

Fighting in the war has tapered off in the last week, following a major Iraqi offensive that probed deep into Iranian territory. The Iraqis claimed to have captured 18,000 Iranian prisoners of war and huge amounts of war materiel during the offensive, as well as to have liberated the last Iraqi territory held by Iran.

Western diplomats noted, however, that two areas in northeastern Iraq are still held by a combination of Kurdish rebel forces and Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

Perez de Cuellar has proposed deploying about 250 members of the U.N. Truce Supervisory Organization along the 750-mile border between the two countries, stretching from Turkey to the Persian Gulf.

Wallace reported from Nicosia, Cyprus and McManus from Washington.