Gorbachev Asks Arabs to Meet to Solve Crisis

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, rejecting a military solution in the Persian Gulf as “unacceptable,” Monday called for a meeting of Arab countries, with Saudi Arabia in a leading role, as a means of seeking a political settlement to the crisis.

“Now, more than ever, there are arguments in favor of using the Arab factor,” Gorbachev declared at a news conference after two days of talks with French President Francois Mitterrand.

Gorbachev said Soviet special envoy Yevgeny Primakov, who met with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein over the weekend in Baghdad, reported signs of continued softening in positions taken by Hussein.

“The position of Saddam Hussein is not the same that he held some time ago (after the Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait). Some reflection has taken place,” Gorbachev said.

In an interview with Cable News Network broadcast Monday, Hussein himself described the sessions with Primakov as “wide-ranging, deep and very useful.” Primakov flew to Saudi Arabia on Monday for talks with King Fahd.

Although stressing Soviet solidarity with United Nations sanctions against Iraq, Gorbachev urged caution in dealing with what he described as an essentially Arab problem that should be solved by Arabs.

“There needs to be some Arab mechanism,” he said. “All this is taking place on Arab soil, and we need to look at the national interests of the people. This is the quickest way to seek a settlement for Iraqi leadership as well.”

At the same time, Gorbachev added, members of the U.N. Security Council must stick together in the strict enforcement of U.N. sanctions against Iraq.

“We cannot allow and should never give grounds to Iraq and the regime of Saddam Hussein to believe or have any hope of disharmony or weakening of the resolutions,” he said.

By stressing Arab-led negotiations with the Iraqi government, Gorbachev appeared to be opening the door to a possible compromise with Hussein that would allow the Iraqi president to withdraw from Kuwait without losing face among fellow Arabs.

For 20 years, the Soviet Union and France have been Iraq’s strongest allies outside the Arab bloc. However, Mitterrand did not join with Gorbachev in the appeal for a joint Arab conference on the Iraq issue, saying only that he has long favored an international conference to deal with the Arab-Israeli question.

Mitterrand, who was quoted in the French press recently as saying that war was imminent in the gulf, took a more pessimistic stance than that of his Soviet counterpart.

“The basic facts haven’t changed since the Aug. 2 invasion,” the French president said Monday. “I can see how various developments could link together to lead to an armed conflict.” Almost from the beginning of the gulf crisis, Mitterrand has talked about what he terms the “logic of war.”

A few hours after Gorbachev and Mitterrand broke up their meeting at the 14th-Century Rambouillet Chateau outside Paris, 257 French hostages boarded an Iraqi Airlines charter flight in Baghdad to return to France.

The plane landed in Paris late Monday to cheers from throngs of family members and journalists. Among those returning were seven French diplomats who had endured an arduous siege of their embassy in Kuwait city.

In a move aimed at separating France from the rest of the international community opposed to the invasion of Kuwait, Hussein ordered the release of all French hostages, including those held as human shields at strategic sites.

“I am delighted to have the French hostages come back,” Mitterrand said during his joint news conference with Gorbachev.