U.S., Iraq Renew Effort to Agree on Meetings : Gulf crisis: Contacts resume with three weeks to go to deadline. Diplomats say both sides are eager for talks.

With three weeks to go before a get-out-or-else deadline on Kuwait, the United States and Iraq have resumed contacts here after a suspension of more than a week, Western diplomats said Wednesday.

The contacts, broken off after a dispute over dates for reciprocal Washington-Baghdad visits, have resumed quietly, said the diplomats, who were not specific as to the content of the talks.

There were no official announcements of the talks’ resumption from either government, but both sides have expressed eagerness to get proposed peace negotiations back on track.

“I have not given up hope on the diplomatic process,” said Joseph C. Wilson IV, who is in charge of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

Despite the renewal of Washington-Baghdad contacts, however, other signals in the Persian Gulf were more grim:

* U.S. military commanders in Saudi Arabia said Iraq appears to be ignoring the United Nations’ ultimatum to withdraw from Kuwait and seems to be bracing for battle.

* Iraq test-fired a surface-to-surface missile, aiming it away from the multinational forces massed in the gulf. A similar test-firing in early December caught allied forces off guard and triggered a heightened alert for some U.S. forces.

* Amid heightened concern about possible terrorist attacks tied to the Persian Gulf crisis, the State Department ordered the evacuation of non-essential U.S. personnel and dependents from Jordan and Sudan. Evacuations have already begun in six other Mideast and North African nations.

The State Department, meanwhile, denied a report in an Israeli newspaper that Secretary of State James A. Baker III would travel to Baghdad on Jan. 9 to meet with President Saddam Hussein. Despite the renewal of contacts, “there is no indication from the Iraqis that they have changed their position on dates,” said State Department spokeswoman Sondra McCarty.

Iraq has insisted that Baker visit Baghdad on Jan. 12, a date the Bush Administration has rejected as being too close to the United Nation’s Jan. 15 deadline for Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait. The United States has countered by offering several dates up until Jan. 3 for a Baker visit, although President Bush has stopped short of flatly ruling out a visit after that date.

State Department officials also downplayed the resumption of contacts, which came Wednesday morning with a telephone call between Wilson and Iraq’s deputy foreign minister, Nizar Hamdoon, according to Washington sources.

“We’ve just had a holiday and a weekend,” said one U.S. official. “We are available any time, anywhere to speak with the Iraqis,” he added, noting that U.S. officials spoke with Iraq’s ambassador to Washington, Mohammed Mashat, on Friday before Mashat departed for consultations in Baghdad.

On Christmas Day, Iraqi newspapers issued an appeal for peace talks with the United States saying that, despite the approaching deadline, it was not too late.

With Washington and Baghdad unable to agree on dates for reciprocal talks on the gulf crisis, the two sides deadlocked earlier this month. A planned Dec. 17 visit by Iraqi Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz to Washington was canceled when the Bush Administration refused Iraq’s Jan. 12 date for the Baker visit.

With the renewal of U.S.-Iraqi contacts, diplomats here speculated on an array of formulas to break the deadlock. One is to jettison the idea of dual meetings and hold only one: in Baghdad between Baker and Hussein.

This formula would dispense with the tangle over who sets the second date. Iraq insisted that if Washington has the right to schedule a meeting between Aziz and President Bush, Baghdad can set the date for a Baker-Hussein meeting.

Agreement on a single meeting would mean that negotiations on a date could begin anew, with both sides contributing to a compromise. Implicit in this notion is that Hussein would yield on his Jan. 12 date and Bush would give up his demand that talks in Baghdad take place no later than Jan. 3.

“They could cut the difference down the middle,” suggested one Western diplomat.

However, Iraq is said to value a visit to Washington, to give Aziz not only a chance to meet Bush but also to see congressional leaders--and to appear on television.

“Iraq wants to make a publicity splash,” said a European diplomat.

Diplomats here think both sides are eager for talks: the Bush Administration to satisfy doubts that it has exhausted all peaceful means of freeing Kuwait; Hussein to avert impending war by getting a diplomatic process under way.

Iraq took pains Wednesday to dampen speculation that a recall of 26 of its ambassadors from abroad signaled a change in policy toward Kuwait, which, after its Aug. 2 invasion, Baghdad annexed as its 19th province. Some diplomats had suggested that the unusual recall foreshadowed a major announcement by Hussein.

In a broadcast statement, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said the ambassadors were recalled for consultations during the Christmas season because many had not returned to Baghdad during the 4 1/2-month Persian Gulf crisis.

Iraq is reported to be shuffling its diplomatic corps and closing some embassies and consulates as a money-saving measure.

Some diplomats profess to see signs of erosion in the Baghdad government’s stand on keeping Kuwait. One diplomat noted that the ruling Revolutionary Command Council, in a recent document, said it is Iraq’s “belief” that Kuwait is part of the country, a slight backing off from the usual all-out insistence that the oil-rich mini-state is irrevocably annexed territory.

Baghdad is also troubled by its obvious strategic weaknesses, diplomats say. Iraqi officials were alarmed by a recent request by Turkey for a new supply of allied aircraft from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, creating the prospect of attack from Iraq’s northern border should hostilities erupt.

On Wednesday, Iraq published a warning to Turkey over an alleged Dec. 12 overflight of Iraqi territory by a pair of Turkish jets. Privately, Iraq has sent a message to Ankara asking for bilateral talks, Western diplomats here said.

Times staff writer David Lauter in Washington contributed to this article.