U.S. Presses for Soviet Support of U.N. Action

President Bush mounted a full-court press at the Paris summit Tuesday to win Soviet support for a tough new United Nations resolution authorizing military action against Iraq, but Administration officials said success still is not within their immediate grasp.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III met late into the night with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze in an effort to forge agreement on a new U.N. resolution. Even though Bush failed to win his way on gulf tactics, he is apparently on the verge of gaining another important success in the field of arms control. U.S. and Soviet officials announced that Bush and Gorbachev will hold a summit meeting in Moscow early next year, at which they are expected to sign a long-awaited treaty reducing strategic armaments.

In a brief session with reporters after their meeting, Baker and Shevardnadze emphasized that the United States and the Soviet Union remain united in their basic commitment to oppose Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and drive his forces from Kuwait.

But while the Soviets said once more that they do not rule out the use of force as a last resort, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev said in an interview with French television that the solution to the Persian Gulf crisis “must be political.”

And, while denouncing the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in strong terms and saying it is time for the U.N. Security Council to reassess the situation in the gulf, Gorbachev made clear that he is not now prepared to come out for a resolution authorizing a military offensive.

Bush had hoped to win a public endorsement for such a resolution from Gorbachev during the three-day meeting of the 34-nation Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, which ends here today. The Administration sees such a step, combined with its decision to dramatically increase the size of the U.S. force in the gulf region, as a way of ratcheting up the pressure on Hussein.

The gap between Washington and Moscow on gulf tactics is not necessarily a permanent one. Gorbachev’s statement Tuesday suggested that the differences with Bush may be primarily ones of timing.

“All political leaders aspire to avoid a military solution,” the Soviet leader declared in the interview with French television. “I have the feeling that’s the essence, but we cannot tolerate Saddam Hussein and his regime bringing the world community to its knees. That is unacceptable, and I am persuaded that we will reach a solution in the interest of all nations.”

Bush has also insisted that he wants a peaceful settlement, but he considers U.N. authorization of military action crucial to his campaign to intensify pressure on Iraq and maintain the international alliance against it.

Bush leaves here today for Saudi Arabia, where he will spend Thanksgiving Day visiting American military forces and conferring with King Fahd about military strategy in the gulf standoff. The President will visit Cairo on Friday to see Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, one of the strongest allies in the multinational military force confronting Iraq, before returning to Washington later in the day.

The main purpose of Bush’s visit to Saudi Arabia, White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said, will be to visit U.S. commanders and their troops, “seeing firsthand the deployment of our forces, the kinds of difficulties that they face in the desert, offering them support and assurances that the American people are behind them.”

At the summit here, Bush also held an hourlong closed-door session with President Turgut Ozal of Turkey, and Fitzwater later said the President “noted that Turkey is showing real leadership in the international response to Iraq’s aggression against Kuwait and that the United States is committed to helping Turkey to deal with the effects of that situation on Turkey.”

After the session, Bush said: “Turkey and the United States are side by side in this, and nobody has been more steadfast than the Turks and Mr. Ozal. So I have no complaints, only gratitude. Glad we’re together on this one.”

The President also accepted an invitation to visit Turkey sometime early next year, perhaps in conjunction with the Moscow summit trip.

Bush, clearly irritated by a reporter’s question about whether he had any complaints about lack of Soviet support for the proposed U.N. resolution, declared, “Just be patient, and all will be well.”

And a senior Administration official, requesting anonymity, insisted that Bush is “very close” to persuading the Soviets to publicly endorse the proposed resolution. “But we know from experience we had better not say too much about an agreement with the Soviets until they are ready to have it announced,” the official said.

During another of several bilateral sessions here, Bush thanked Polish Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki for his country’s support of the U.N. opposition to Iraq’s Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait and for sending a hospital ship and a rescue ship to the area. They also discussed Poland’s severe debt problem during their 20-minute session, and Bush pledged that the United States would “seriously” address the matter.

The CSCE summit, hailed by leaders of all 34 nations in attendance as a symbolic ending of the Cold War, included Monday’s signing of a treaty providing for a massive reduction of conventional arms. But the potentially explosive Persian Gulf crisis--with the United States lobbying for the U.N. resolution and President Hussein announcing additional hostage releases and a massive new buildup of Iraqi forces in Kuwait--overshadowed all other developments here.

Baker, after his meeting with Shevardnadze, was asked about Washington’s failure to win a Soviet endorsement of the proposed resolution. “We should not jump to conclusions, because we might be wrong if we jump to conclusions,” he replied.

Asked whether he agreed with Baker, Shevardnadze said, “I wish to subscribe to everything the secretary has just said. Indeed, that is our common approach, and we took that approach from the very first day of the aggression. We shared a common platform, we acted together, and we continue to act the same way in the future.”

However, at a press briefing, Fitzwater made it clear that the Americans and Soviets had not only failed to agree on a timetable for a U.N. resolution authorizing a military offensive, but the Soviets had not even agreed that such a resolution would be useful.

“Is the discussion about whether or not to have the resolution, or is the discussion about what the resolution is going to say?” Fitzwater was asked.

“Well, it’s all of the above,” he replied. “The discussion concerns the value of a resolution, the need for it, what approach it might take, what its usefulness would be, how it would strengthen the alliance, what its formulation under the U.N. resolutions would be--all of those aspects.”

Fitzwater emphasized that in their negotiations for a tough new U.N. resolution, U.S. officials are discussing several alternative approaches, but he said he could not discuss any proposed language while the country-by-country consultations are under way.

Administration officials have said that at least seven of the 15 members of the U.N. Security Council have pledged support for a new resolution and that they hope to line up near-unanimous support before requesting council approval. Secretary of State Baker plans to visit three other members--Yemen, Colombia and Malaysia--during the next three days.

Fitzwater said that, while the United States does not have a “hard and fast” timetable to get U.N. approval of the resolution, it still hopes to win approval before the end of this month, when the United States will relinquish chairmanship of the Security Council to Yemen, a Persian Gulf state bordering on Saudi Arabia that has sided with Iraq in the gulf crisis.

The People’s Republic of China, as well as the Soviet Union, has been counseling caution and patience in the gulf, but Fitzwater said Washington has “a very satisfactory understanding with the Chinese.” Baker spoke to China’s foreign minister Tuesday morning and said that “we feel very good about that situation.”