Iraq Stalling Exit Visas for Workers, Soviets Say

The Soviet Union, which over the last two months has steadily escalated its criticism of Iraq, complained Tuesday that Baghdad has started delaying exit visas for hundreds of Soviet specialists whose contracts have expired and now wish to go home.

Yuri Gremitskikh, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said that for more than a week, the Iraqi government has withheld permission for 870 oil workers to leave southern Iraq and for 372 construction workers to leave a thermal power station near Baghdad.

Gremitskikh stopped well short of accusing Iraq of using the workers as hostages, as it has used Western and Japanese men, but he warned that the Soviet Union expects Iraq to honor President Saddam Hussein’s personal pledge not to inhibit the departure of Soviet personnel.

“Energetic measures continue to be taken on our part to ensure the safety and normal conditions for existence to our people in Iraq, and to speed up their departure from that country, primarily those asking to leave,” he told reporters at a regular Foreign Ministry briefing.

Soviet officials have complained privately in recent days that as Moscow’s criticism of Baghdad has sharpened, the delays in issuing exit visas have lengthened, stretching in some cases to more than three weeks.

Gremitskikh said the Soviet Union has managed to evacuate 2,617 people over the last two months, including all non-working women and children, but that 5,174 of its citizens are still there. Most of the Soviet personnel are said to be oil field workers, doctors, teachers, engineers and specialists in a variety of other fields and on construction projects.

Although there were more than 200 Soviet military advisers stationed in Iraq at the beginning of August--all reportedly involved in the training of Iraqi troops to use and maintain Soviet weapons that the Iraqis had purchased earlier--the number has now dwindled to fewer than 150, according to Soviet officials.

With the threat of war undiminished, concern has mounted here that the Soviet specialists would be caught up in a conflict and perhaps even used as hostages to deter Western attacks on strategic Iraqi installations.