Paris Spurns Peacemaker Role in Gulf : Diplomacy: French officials deny they negotiated with Baghdad to win the release of 9 hostages.

Normally delighted to play a starring role in world affairs, French leaders said Monday that they have been miscast as peacemakers by Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein.

Hussein said Sunday in a speech in Baghdad that he planned to contact France for talks seeking to resolve the Persian Gulf crisis, and on Monday he ordered the release of nine French hostages held as involuntary “guests” in Iraq.

French officials, clearly embarrassed, denied Monday that France has entered into negotiations with Iraq.

There has been “only routine contact,” Hubert Vedrine, a spokesman for French President Francois Mitterrand, told reporters, “nothing in any case that can be interpreted as a negotiation.”

Hadelin de Latour du Pin, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, insisted that France is not a “weak point” in the international alliance against Iraq and will not be influenced by what he described as an attempt to divide the Western camp.

“I think it is clear that Iraq is playing that game,” he said. “I think we can understand why, but up to now it has not been crowned with success.”

He pointed out that Mitterrand has taken a public stand that Iraq must withdraw its troops from Kuwait, and he cited Mitterrand’s decision to send planes and 4,300 military personnel to the gulf region as a sign of France’s commitment.

Vedrine confirmed that Mitterrand is planning to go to the region to meet with French military commanders and regional leaders. For security reasons, no date has been announced, but according to the French press, the trip will take place this week.

Regarding the release of the French hostages, Vedrine said: “Nine hostages have been freed, but that does not change at all the basic problem. The question is the liberation of all French and foreign hostages.”

According to official French estimates, the Iraqis are holding a total of 352 French nationals, 267 in Iraq and 85 in Kuwait.

French officials said the Iraqis apparently misunderstood or misinterpreted Mitterrand’s Sept. 24 speech to the U.N. General Assembly. Mitterrand condemned Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and the taking of hostages, but he added that after Iraq “states its intention to withdraw its troops and liberates the hostages, then everything becomes possible.”

Iraq’s ambassador to France, Abdul Razzak Hashimi, promptly hailed the speech as a “positive step that suggests an open door.”

On Monday, French officials explained that Mitterrand had meant that Iraq needs to do more than simply declare its intention to withdraw troops and release hostages.

“One must be very precise,” Vedrine said. “There has been a misunderstanding. . . . The word intention is very important, but it does not lead to negotiations. It leads on to the second phase, in which the U.N. Security Council supervises the evacuation of military forces and restoration of Kuwaiti sovereignty.”