Only U.S., Iraq to Take Part in Proposed Talks

Although Iraq has not yet formally accepted President Bush’s offer of face-to-face talks, diplomats already have agreed that the meetings will be limited to representatives of the two nations, the State Department said Monday.

Washington agreed to exclude allies, even though that undercuts the U.S. claim that the crisis is an international one, after Baghdad insisted that the Palestine Liberation Organization must be included if allies are invited, department officials said.

When Bush invited Iraqi Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz to Washington and offered to send Secretary of State James A. Baker III to Baghdad, the President suggested that he might invite representatives of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other U.S. allies to attend the Washington meeting.

But Administration officials said the United States prefers bilateral talks to a meeting that would include the PLO because such a session would implicitly link the Persian Gulf crisis with the Arab-Israeli conflict--something Washington refuses to do.

State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said that the United States and Iraq agreed to exclude other countries after two weekend meetings in Baghdad between Joseph C. Wilson IV, charge d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy, and Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Nazir Hamdoun.

Despite the preliminary agreement on procedure, Tutwiler said, Iraq has not yet agreed to the talks. Bush suggested that Aziz come to Washington late next week and that Baker visit Baghdad sometime before Jan. 15.

The U.N. Security Council voted last week to authorize the United States and its allies to use military force against Iraq any time after Jan. 15 if the Baghdad regime does not end its occupation of Kuwait by that date.

Tutwiler said that U.S. officials conferred with other nations in the Persian Gulf coalition before agreeing to limit the talks to the two nations.

She said that the bilateral talks would not damage Washington’s claim that the dispute involves a broad international coalition against Baghdad. She added that a number of nations in the coalition, including the Soviet Union and China, already have had one-on-one meetings with Iraqi officials.

“I couldn’t say that this is any different than what other governments have done at the highest political levels, trying to impress upon Saddam Hussein the unity of the international community,” Tutwiler said.

Another State Department official said that most other members of the coalition agree with the decision to limit the talks to U.S. and Iraqi officials.

“They trust us not to sell them out,” the official said. “And they realize that Tarik Aziz would just do a lot of posturing if Arab ambassadors were there.”

The official said that the United States would go along with almost any date suggested by Iraq for the Baker trip.

He said that, in addition to Baker, the U.S. delegation would probably include Assistant Secretary of State John Kelly, Dennis Ross, State Department chief of policy planning, and Richard Haas, the National Security Council’s Middle East expert.