Baker Discusses Gulf Crisis Peace Scenarios : Mideast: U.S. troops would stay in region, he says. Iraq says it won’t let dispute over dates block his visit.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III, anticipating a peaceful end to the confrontation with Iraq, said Sunday that the U.S.-led multinational armed force would remain in the region to keep order during possible post-crisis negotiations between Baghdad and a restored government of Kuwait.

Baker said the international troops would even the odds between Iraq and its much weaker neighbor, making it possible for Kuwait to resume the negotiations that were shattered when Iraq overran Kuwait on Aug. 2.

He said the United States would not object if Kuwait was willing to redress Iraq’s longstanding grievances, provided that President Saddam Hussein agreed to end his occupation and restore the ousted emir to his throne.

So far, neither Washington nor Baghdad has given any indication of a major compromise. Nevertheless, the mood in both capitals is dramatically sunnier since face-to-face contacts were proposed and Iraq decided to release its hostages.

Although Baker usually shuns hypothetical questions, he spoke freely about the steps that might be taken if Iraq withdraws from Kuwait. Interviewed on the ABC-TV program “This Week With David Brinkley,” Baker said that the United States is prepared to pledge not to use military force against Iraq, provided that Baghdad complies with U.N. resolutions demanding an end to the occupation of Kuwait.

At the same time, Baker said he will refuse to go to Baghdad any later than Jan. 3, rejecting Iraq’s proposal that he visit Hussein on Jan. 12, just three days before the U.N.-set deadline for Iraq to get out of Kuwait.

Baker said he is prepared to make the trip any time between Dec. 20 and Jan. 3 but will not go along with what he interpreted as an Iraqi attempt to drag out the talks and effectively delay the use of force.

“We will not be a party to circumventing the Jan. 15 deadline in the U.N. resolution, and we will not be a party to playing games with the U.N. resolution,” he said.

However, Abdul Amir Anbari, Iraq’s ambassador to the United Nations, said his government will not permit the dispute over dates to prevent Iraqi Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz from visiting Washington or Baker from going to Baghdad.

Interviewed on the NBC-TV program “Meet the Press,” Anbari said the squabble is “a marginal issue” that will be resolved. He said he “would not exclude” a Jan. 3 visit by Baker.

The two countries have already agreed that Aziz will visit Washington on Dec. 17, provided that the controversy over the timing of the Baker trip can be settled.

Anbari said that Iraq’s decision to release all foreign hostages was a direct response to President Bush’s call for face-to-face talks.

“The President had taken a step in the right direction, and we responded positively,” he said.

As he has done throughout the crisis, Baker said the United States will not accept any settlement that leaves Hussein with anything to show for his aggression.

Baker said he will refuse to make any kind of deal even if Hussein offers to withdraw from most of Kuwait in exchange for no more than complete control of the Rumaila oil field that straddles the Iraq-Kuwait border and title to two uninhabited Kuwaiti islands that control Iraq’s access to the Persian Gulf.

Asked if he thinks Congress, the American public and the world community are willing to go to war over the islands and the disputed oil field, Baker said he believes they are.

“To say anything else would be to reward an aggressor,” he said.

Nevertheless, Baker left little doubt that the United States would gladly accept just such an outcome, provided that the government of Kuwait was returned to power and made the deal itself.

He said that post-crisis talks are “a matter for Kuwait and Iraq, not the United States.”

Asked how Kuwait could be expected to stand up to Iraqi bullying in such negotiations, Baker said: “We will be there with the multinational force to make sure that there is order and security during the period of time that such negotiations would take place.”

Brent Scowcroft, the White House national security adviser, admitted that Bush’s overture for an exchange of foreign minister visits caught Washington’s Arab allies by surprise. He left little doubt that Arab leaders were not pleased when the United States agreed to the sort of face-to-face talks it had been demanding that they refuse.

“What we said (to the Arab allies) is this doesn’t change anything,” Scowcroft said on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press.” “This is a tactical move.”

He said he believes the Arabs were satisfied with that explanation.

Both Baker and Scowcroft said that the United States would not accept--and presumably would veto--a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for peace talks to tackle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They said it is the wrong time to consider such a resolution even though it would do nothing more than repeat a U.S. position, going back to the Reagan Administration, that a properly structured conference would be useful “at the appropriate time.”

Adopting such a resolution now would seem to link the Arab-Israeli conflict to the Persian Gulf crisis, something Hussein favors and the United States rejects.

“Direct or implied linkage between the gulf and other problems in the region . . . that is unacceptable,” Scowcroft said.

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, in the United States for a meeting Tuesday with Bush, said his country will never go along with an international conference.

“We will not accept it; we will not participate in it,” Shamir said. “It is a non-starter.”

Interviewed on the CBS-TV program “Face the Nation,” Shamir said Israel will refuse to go along with any gulf settlement that requires it to make concessions.

He called on the United States to maintain its uncompromising approach to talks with Iraq.

“The U.S. position is very strong, very justified,” Shamir said. He urged the United States to “stick to its position.”

After his interview, Baker traveled to Houston, where he will confer today and Tuesday with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze. The meeting was set for Baker’s hometown to give Shevardnadze a look at a part of the country outside of the Washington and New York areas.