Hussein Seeks Peace at Home With Kurd Foes

Saddam Hussein is seeking to make peace with Iraq’s Kurdish minority, a Baghdad newspaper said today. The Kurds have in the past been the target of poison gas attacks and forcible relocation by the Baghdad government.

Also today, a French television station reported that Hussein had sent a message to Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and French President Francois Mitterrand saying he was “ready to discuss” the Kuwaiti situation.

But a spokeswoman for Mitterrand said she had “no information” about any such message as reported by Network La Cinque. “Maybe one was sent. But we didn’t receive one,” she said.

Hussein’s reported bid to reconcile with the Kurds comes several weeks after the Iraqi president made peace with another longstanding foe, Iran, so he could move tens of thousands of troops from the Iranian border to occupied Kuwait and the Saudi Arabian border.

It was not immediately clear why Hussein would want to placate the Kurdish minority, but he may want to eliminate all internal opposition to prepare for possible combat with the multinational force arrayed against him.

A high-ranking Soviet envoy met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak today in a continuing attempt to find a diplomatic solution to the Persian Gulf crisis.

An Egyptian official said Soviet envoy Yevgeny M. Primakov was not acting as a mediator between Hussein and other world leaders but was seeking to discover a peaceful solution to the crisis.

Primakov, a close aide to Gorbachev, had raised hopes that the gulf crisis could be settled through diplomacy with his optimistic comments after an Oct. 5 meeting with Hussein in Baghdad.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Esmat Abdel Meguid said after talks with Primakov today that the Soviet envoy was not acting as Hussein’s go-between. Primakov met later with Mubarak before heading back to Iraq for further talks with Hussein, Cairo Radio said.

Meanwhile, the United States appeared to be sending strong signals it was considering ending the standoff with a military strike.

White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater did not deny reports that Secretary of State James A. Baker III would travel to Saudi Arabia to obtain permission for a military strike against Iraq if that option were deemed necessary.