Briton Hopeful of a Peaceful Gulf Solution

British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd said Wednesday that he is “reasonably hopeful” that Iraq can be forced to leave occupied Kuwait without going to war.

Jordan was Hurd’s last stop on a five-country tour of the Persian Gulf region urging continued Arab support for the hard-line U.S. and British position in the gulf crisis.

“The accumulation of diplomatic and increasingly important economic pressures has a reasonable chance of success,” Hurd told reporters, although a military option cannot be excluded, he said, “because at the end of the day, aggression must be reversed.”

Hurd was not the only diplomat on the move Wednesday. On both sides of the Kuwait stalemate there were efforts to shore up positions before Sunday’s meeting in Finland of President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Jordan’s King Hussein, just back from a 10-day peace mission to European and Arab capitals, conferred with Hurd and then flew to Baghdad for talks today with President Saddam Hussein.

In Rome, meanwhile, foreign and finance ministers of the European Community prepared to meet Friday and Saturday for talks on the gulf crisis. Iraqi Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz was in Moscow, and a deputy foreign minister, Taha Yassin Radadan, was in China.

About three dozen Jordanian reporters walked out of Hurd’s press conference after one of them read a statement accusing Britain of pursuing “a strategy to humiliate the Arabs and keep them slaves.”

There is strong support for Iraq’s Hussein in Jordan, where there is a large Palestinian community.

“Britain and the world have not forgotten,” Hurd said, “that there was occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem, and the need for a solution that takes into consideration Palestinian self-determination and Israel’s right to security.”

In regard to Iraq, he said: “Our aim is to bring about an end to this aggression, if possible without military means. I am reasonably hopeful that a solution can be reached without further bloodshed.”