CRISIS IN THE PERSIAN GULF : Top Soviet Adviser Dispatched to Seek Peaceful Settlement : Diplomacy: Gorbachev’s chief foreign policy aide will visit Washington, Paris and Rome this week.

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev on Tuesday sent his chief foreign policy adviser on a “delicate” mission to Washington, Paris and Rome in the hope, a Soviet spokesman said, of avoiding war in the Persian Gulf.

Yevgeny M. Primakov, a member of Gorbachev’s Presidential Council, will meet Friday with President Bush in Washington after talks in Rome with Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti and in Paris with French President Francois Mitterrand.

Primakov, a leading Soviet specialist on the Middle East, returned to Moscow a week ago from Baghdad, where his lengthy discussions with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on the gulf crisis encouraged what he described as “cautious optimism” on prospects for a peaceful settlement.

He also met with King Hussein of Jordan and with Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Vitaly N. Ignatenko, Gorbachev’s press secretary, said the president had decided to send Primakov to the three Western capitals, and probably others, in the hope that a dialogue could be started that would defuse the crisis.

“The Soviet leadership believes that if there is the slightest chance for a peaceful settlement of the conflict, we want to pursue it to the end,” Ignatenko told reporters. “That effort is the reason for continuing this mission. . . .

“A very important process is being continued, a process aimed at a political solution for this region. We are not hiding anything. These are not behind-the-scenes maneuvers. . . . These are very serious, thought-out steps of our leadership that are aimed at avoiding war.”

Ignatenko said he could provide no details, however, on the “ideas” that he said Primakov would be conveying on Gorbachev’s behalf to Bush and the other Western leaders.

“The situation in the Persian Gulf today is very complicated,” he said, “and the instructions that President Gorbachev gave comrade Primakov were very complicated and very delicate.

“After these consultations and a report to President Gorbachev, decisions will be made regarding future actions of our leadership in this crisis situation. . . . Diplomatic efforts are being increased, however, and one element is Primakov’s trip.”

He denied a weekend report by the government-run Novosti Press Agency that Hussein had outlined to Primakov possible terms for Iraq’s withdrawal from most of Kuwait.

Novosti, citing Soviet government sources, said Hussein had implied that Iraq was ready to pull back if it could keep the disputed southern portion of the Rumaila oil field on the border between the two countries, as well as two islands that control Iraq’s access to the Persian Gulf through the Shatt al Arab waterway.

“This information is false,” Ignatenko said. Neither Primakov nor anyone in Gorbachev’s office or the Soviet Foreign Ministry was the source for the report, he said. Iraqi officials were embarrassed by the story, he said, and strongly denied it.

Ignatenko emphasized the Soviet commitment to nine U.N. Security Council resolutions denouncing Iraq’s invasion and seizure of Kuwait and demanding the immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of its troops and full restoration of Kuwait’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity.

He said the two Primakov missions had been coordinated with Washington in accordance with understandings that Bush and Gorbachev reached at their meeting last month in Helsinki.

White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater, traveling with Bush on a political trip in the U.S. Midwest, announced that Bush would meet with Primakov on Friday morning. The spokesman said the Soviet adviser would brief Bush on recent conversations with Mitterrand and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, as well as his meeting with Hussein.

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney arrived in Moscow on Tuesday for three days of talks with Gorbachev and other Soviet leaders on the gulf crisis, disarmament and U.S.-Soviet relations as well as visits to military establishments here.

Ignatenko said that the Kremlin, which sold Iraq two-thirds of its weapons, would not provide the United States with information about them or its armed forces.

“We are not at war with Iraq and, of course, there can be no disclosure of secrets,” Ignatenko said.

Baghdad has warned Moscow that Soviet advisers in Iraq would be prevented from leaving the country as a security measure if such information were provided.

Although U.S. officials said earlier that Cheney would press Moscow for such data, and for further cooperation in the crisis, the defense secretary told reporters aboard his plane that he had no specific requests to make of Gorbachev and other Soviet leaders.

“They have got to make their own decisions,” Cheney said.