Iraq to Release 77 Japanese, 31 Other Foreigners : Hostages: The move follows visits to Baghdad. It revives fears of undermining the anti-Hussein coalition.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on Tuesday ordered the release of 108 foreign hostages, including 77 Japanese nationals, in an apparent response to appeals from visiting delegations seeking to chip away at Baghdad’s “human shield” against military attack.

The release order also included 20 Italians, five Swedes, two Germans, two Portuguese and two Australians, according to the official Iraqi News Agency, which announced the partial exemption from a travel ban affecting an estimated 2 million foreigners in Iraq and Kuwait.

The move followed a controversial series of visits to the Iraqi capital in recent days that have caused growing fears among some European leaders that individual hostage negotiations could undermine the international coalition against Iraq.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone held a second day of meetings with Hussein in Baghdad on Tuesday, and former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt arrived in the Iraqi capital Monday in a visit aimed at winning exit visas for all foreigners held in Iraq and Kuwait. The missions follow similar private visits by former British Prime Minister Edward Heath and civil rights activist Jesse Jackson. Former New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange was reported en route to the Persian Gulf region to arrange a meeting with the Iraqi president.

On Monday night, European foreign ministers renewed an earlier stance that nations should not negotiate unilaterally to free citizens trapped in Iraq and Kuwait.

The Iraqi News Agency credited Nakasone’s appeals for the release of the 77 Japanese and said the decision to free the other foreign nationals was based on similar outside requests, including one from a delegation of Swedish Muslims and another from a parliamentary delegation from Italy.

Nakasone met with Hussein again Tuesday to “thank him for Iraq’s decision to allow a large number of Japanese nationals--elderly, sick and students--to travel out,” the INA said.

In Tokyo, the Foreign Ministry listed only 69 Japanese scheduled for release, including 19 captives who were part of an estimated 600 foreigners being held as human shields at strategic sites to help fend off a military attack. The other 50 are Japanese businessmen who were in Iraq at the time of the invasion, according to Japan’s Kyodo News Service.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Taizo Watanabe told reporters in Tokyo that Japan has not tried to secure the release of its nationals through individual negotiations.

Iraq has already freed about 300 French nationals and smaller groups of other Westerners over the last few weeks and has indicated that all foreign “guests” might be released under certain conditions, including a commitment from the U.N. Security Council’s permanent members not to use military action against Iraq.

Nakasone’s visit was described as unofficial, and the German government has shown only lukewarm public support for the effort by Brandt, whose visit was “tolerated but not supported,” officials said.

Brandt met at a government guest house Tuesday with 150 of the estimated 400 Germans being detained in Iraq and Kuwait and also with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz and Deputy Prime Minister Taha Yassin Ramadan. He is scheduled to meet with Hussein today.

Brandt also met unexpectedly Tuesday with Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat, who also met with Nakasone and later told reporters in Baghdad that prospects for peace in the region have improved.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State James A. Baker III, meeting in Cairo with Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen, received what he took to be an assurance that Beijing would not prevent the U.N. Security Council from authorizing the use of military force in the gulf.

A senior State Department official, reporting on Baker’s meeting with Qian, said the foreign minister “didn’t rule out” Security Council action. As one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, China has veto power.

Although China voted for each of the 10 U.N. resolutions adopted so far condemning Iraq, the Beijing regime has been very cool to suggestions that the Security Council might authorize force.

Asked by reporters before the meeting if China would support military action, Qian said: “We’ll still have to wait and see, because all the armed forces have two roles to play: One is to fight a war. The other is to seek peace.”

Baker also conferred with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.