Iran, Iraq Meet Today for Talks on Ending 8-Year War

After eight years of conflict that recalled the World War I battlefield horrors of Verdun and Ypres--trench warfare and mustard gas--Iran and Iraq will begin U.N.-sponsored peace talks here today in an atmosphere thick with mistrust.

“The conflict was imposed on Iraq by Iran’s expansionist and aggressive policies,” charged Iraqi Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz, chief negotiator for his country, on arrival Wednesday afternoon at Geneva International Airport.

And earlier in Tehran, Iran’s chief negotiator, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, charged Iraq with violating terms of an Aug. 20 cease-fire by reinforcing and moving up Iraqi army forces.

The Persian Gulf War took 1 million lives, involved the first systematic use of chemical weapons since World War I and disrupted one of the world’s most strategic sea lanes.

It also devastated the economies of two oil-rich nations, divided the Arab world into rival camps and pitted the militant Islamic theocracy of Iran against the fervid secular nationalism of Iraq.

In light of all this, U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar cautioned that it may take years to resolve the differences between Tehran and Baghdad.

“I don’t believe we can resolve all the problems in a matter of months,” Perez de Cuellar said on his arrival here. “But one must not be pessimistic. I hope that if there is a political will to resolve the problem, we will be able to proceed on a rather fast and accelerated rhythm.”

As part of his formula for a settlement, Perez de Cuellar met with International Red Cross officials in Geneva on Wednesday to ask their help as intermediaries in any exchange of prisoners of war. The numbers are disputed, but Iran is believed to hold about 50,000 Iraqi prisoners of war and Iraq about 20,000 Iranian prisoners.

Perez de Cuellar hopes to begin the talks on a positive note by steering both sides to the prisoner exchange issue, which is believed to be the most easily negotiable of the major differences between the two countries.

The first two phases of the U.N. peace program--a cease-fire and the deployment of a U.N. observer team--already have been achieved, although in somewhat shaky fashion.

The prisoner exchange issue is the next item of Security Council Resolution 598, which has been accepted by both sides as a basis for talks.

What Perez de Cuellar clearly does not want is for the Iranians and Iraqis to take up immediately the last and most difficult issue, a determination of responsibility for the conflict, the roots of which go back to the time of ancient Persia and Mesopotamia.

There were few signs earlier this week that the two countries are willing to cooperate. Iraqi negotiator Aziz made it clear in his initial statement Wednesday that Iraq would not accept blame for starting the war, although its troops were the first to cross the border in September, 1980.

Meanwhile, U.N. officials expressed frustration that neither side would even provide the names of its negotiators until the last minute Wednesday.

“There are security problems regarding movement of the negotiators,” U.N. spokesman Francois Giuliani said.

The Iranian and Iraqi diplomatic missions here, in the same building, refused to comment on the talks. On the sixth floor of the building, the Iranian mission was somber, tense and virtually mute. On the ground floor, the Iraqi mission was in better spirits, but a secretary explained with a smile that the press attache was out of touch because his car had broken down en route to the office.

Saleem Fahmawi, a U.N. spokesman in Iraq, described the border between Iran and Iraq as normal this week despite charges on both sides that the terms of the cease-fire were being violated.

Velayati, perhaps setting the tone for the upcoming peace talks, also accused Iraq of using the cease-fire to prepare an attack, while Iraqi leaders accused Iran of reinforcing its positions.

The feuding and the absence of any hint of compromise suggested Wednesday that the early stages of the negotiations will be taken up with righteous posturing by both delegations.

Among the thornier issues to be resolved is the dispute over the Shatt al Arab waterway that separates the two countries in the south.

The waterway is Iraq’s only direct route to the Persian Gulf, and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein wants full control of it.

The Iranians want the border in the middle of the waterway.

But international interest in the talks focuses largely on the precedent the war set for the use of chemical weapons. Starting last March, the Iraqis began using mustard and nerve gases, with devastating effect.

U.S. officials here have expressed fear that if the Iran-Iraq talks are not successful, chemical weapons will be used again and will spread to such an extent that a world ban will not be possible.

Times staff writer William Tuohy, in Baghdad, Iraq, contributed to this story.