Gorbachev to Press Bush for U.N. Action to Resolve Crisis, Kremlin Officials Say : Diplomacy: The Soviet leader is also expected to stress the importance of a plan for the entire Mideast region.

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev will press President Bush for a new push by the United Nations to resolve the Persian Gulf crisis, preferably through mediation, when they meet on Sunday, Soviet officials said Tuesday.

Gorbachev is also expected to stress in his meeting with Bush the Soviet view that new efforts must be made to resolve the problems of the entire Middle East, including the Arab-Israeli conflict, the plight of the Palestinians and the Lebanese civil war, if the region is not to remain a permanent threat to world peace.

Vitaly N. Ignatenko, Gorbachev’s press secretary, said the Soviet president will be “ready to discuss ways to step up further U.N. activity aimed at unblocking the crisis in the Persian Gulf,” but he gave no details of the proposals that Gorbachev will present during the talks in the Finnish capital, Helsinki.

Eduard A. Shevardnadze, the Soviet foreign minister, predicted that the one-day summit would provide considerable impetus to settling the crisis and avoiding further conflict. He, too, emphasized Soviet readiness to take further political actions to force Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait.

“We are faced with a highly critical emergency situation, which has made necessary an extraordinary action in the form of a special meeting between the Soviet and U.S. presidents,” Shevardnadze said. “Its results will soon be made public. But there is no doubt that the meeting will mark a major milestone on the road toward resolving the crisis.”

Shevardnadze, speaking in Vladivostok in the Soviet Far East, indicated some Soviet interest in proposals for the replacement of Iraqi troops in Kuwait by a U.N. peacekeeping force and of Western troops by a multinational Arab force.

But any solution must be based, Shevardnadze said, on the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait and the full restoration of Kuwait’s sovereignty.

“For the first time in history, the international community has acted with so much unanimity and firmness in response to aggression and in seeking to eliminate its consequences,” he said. “But it essential to pursue our objective through non-military means and in a way that would remove the military presence of other countries.”

Ignatenko reiterated the Soviet Union’s full support for the five U.N. Security Council resolutions condemning Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and demanding its unconditional withdrawal. But he also said that Moscow believes the resolutions should be enforced through political, rather than military, measures and that Gorbachev will discuss possible moves with Bush.

Despite the failure of U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar to make any progress during his weekend talks with Tarik Aziz, the Iraqi foreign minister, Ignatenko said the Soviet Union “welcomes any political efforts, including mediation,” to resolve the crisis.

Shevardnadze warned Iraq that efforts to achieve a peaceful resolution “should in no way imply that the aggressor has nothing to fear, for it runs the risk of finding itself totally isolated from the rest of the world.”

“We are convinced that the sanctions will produce their effect, compelling Iraq’s leaders to heed the voice of reason,” he said.

The Soviet foreign minister, outlining what could be the major initiative to come from the Bush-Gorbachev meeting, called for broad international efforts to resolve the multiple conflicts in the Middle East, warning that “unless peace comes to the Middle East, we shall continue to pay a huge price for its wars.”

After reviewing the present situation in the region, Shevardnadze said the Soviet Union had “still come to the same conclusion--that we have to step up pressure for an international conference on the Middle East” without deferring the efforts to bring about a comprehensive settlement under the aegis of the United Nations.

“Israel’s agreement to its convocation could exert a positive influence on the overall situation in the Middle East and on efforts to defuse the crisis in the Persian Gulf,” he continued, pressing Israel to accept the Kremlin’s long-standing proposal for an international conference on the Middle East.

“For its part, the Soviet Union would not leave without response an Israeli move along these lines--and might take a fresh look at the issue of Soviet-Israeli relations.”

Moscow’s view, he said, is that the major powers have contributed to the acute tensions in the region, particularly by arming countries there to “critically high levels,” and that they thus have an obligation to help “reverse the routine sliding toward sharper confrontation and the accumulation of explosive political, military and social material in that part of the world.”

Reflecting on the immense changes in Soviet-American relations in recent years, Shevardnadze commented, “It is hard even to imagine what turn the situation in the Persian Gulf might have taken had the current crisis occurred three years ago. Presumably, we could have been on the brink of a world war, and nuclear forces would have been placed on high combat alert.

“Today the crisis situation has taken on a different dimension,” he continued, “and the unity among the five permanent members of the Security Council makes one confident that the crisis will be overcome.”