NATO Will Deploy 40 Jets to Aid Gulf Effort : Military: The warplanes will help defend Turkey. The action signals a new alliance commitment.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization on Wednesday ordered more than 40 combat planes sent to Turkey next week in the military alliance’s first deployment in the Persian Gulf crisis.

The German, Italian and Belgian jet fighters were assigned a solely defensive role for Turkey, a NATO member state that borders Iraq on the north. But the decision sends a political message to Baghdad that the alliance, established during the Cold War to defend Western Europe against Soviet arms, is prepared to become engaged in the Middle East crisis touched off by Iraq’s invasion and occupation of Kuwait.

The Turkish government had requested air support last month. The inclusion of German planes marks the Bonn government’s first active military deployment outside German borders since World War II.

As the Western military buildup in the region continued--a task force of 13 U.S. warships out of San Diego left Subic Bay in the Philippines for the gulf earlier Wednesday--peace efforts were also stepped up with the approach of the U.N.-mandated Jan. 15 deadline for an Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait.

Michel Vauzelle, president of France’s National Assembly Foreign Affairs Commission and a confidant of President Francois Mitterrand, left on a surprise visit to Baghdad. He insisted that the visit is private and that he carries no French initiative, but he declared:

“If, by misfortune, war becomes inevitable, it must not be possible to reproach the French for not having worked until the end in the service of the chances of peace.”

The Iraqi leadership has pinned its hopes of splitting the Western military alliance against the invasion on France and a few other European nations.

Meanwhile, the foreign ministers of Egypt, Syria and Libya met in Cairo. They later met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who has sent the largest Arab contingent to Saudi Arabia. There was no official report on their talks. But Cairo’s official Middle East News Agency quoted Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi as saying the talks were laying the groundwork for an Arab summit on the crisis.

Egypt’s semiofficial and authoritative Al Ahram newspaper reported that a three-way Arab summit involving Mubarak, Kadafi and Syrian President Hafez Assad will take place soon, but no details were given.

The Arab League, which has just relocated its headquarters from Tunis to Cairo, met twice in the early weeks of the crisis and voted to condemn the invasion of Kuwait and demand an Iraqi withdrawal. The votes were split, however, and the Arab nations remain divided. A later attempt to convene the league foundered on disagreements on the agenda and location.

Announcing the decision to send NATO air units to Turkey, an alliance spokesman in Brussels said the deployment is intended to “demonstrate the collective solidarity and determination of the alliance in the face of any potential threat.”

Turkish President Turgut Ozal has pledged that his government will not open a second front against Iraq if war breaks out over its Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait and has not sent Turkish troops or armor to join the Western forces deployed in Saudi Arabia. Turkey did, however, cripple Iraqi oil exports by shutting down a pipeline through Turkey to the Mediterranean in compliance with a U.N. economic embargo against Iraq.

In Washington, the Bush Administration welcomed the deployment of the NATO planes.

“This is another firm signal of Western resolve and solidarity in response to a clear threat to the security of a member country, and thus to the alliance as a whole,” said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. “We strongly welcome this decision.”

Boucher said the NATO deployment is “another important step in response to the crisis in the Persian Gulf.”

Turkey, the only NATO member bordering Iraq, also has increased its ground forces along the Iraqi border and tied down an estimated 100,000 of President Saddam Hussein’s troops in the region. The NATO air base at Incirlik in southern Turkey has been made available to U.S. aircraft involved in the crisis.

The warplanes scheduled to begin arriving in Turkey on Sunday are normally attached to a NATO quick-reaction unit, and their deployment marks the first use of elements of the force outside training exercises. They will include 18 Belgian Mirage 5 fighter-bombers, six Italian U.S.-made F-104 Starfighter all-weather fighters and 18 German Alpha Jet ground-attack planes.

Although deployed in a defensive role, the planes underline the air-war dominance of the Western forces in the crisis. With more than 2,400 warplanes in the gulf theater and more on the way aboard newly dispatched American carrier groups, the Western forces have overwhelming superiority over Iraq’s 700 fighters and bombers in numbers alone, and they are credited with superior performance as well.

With Hussein’s ground and armored forces dug in in southern Kuwait and proposed Washington-Baghdad talks stalled for lack of agreement on dates, peacemaking efforts by other nations picked up as the U.N. deadline drew closer.

Besides the Baghdad trip by the French lawmaker and the tripartite Arab meeting in Cairo, there were other moves afoot.

Jordan’s King Hussein, whose country is sandwiched between Israel and Iraq, set off on another round of talks in European capitals, with stops scheduled in London, Rome and Bonn, according to reports here in Amman. As on past peace swings during the crisis, the Jordanian monarch reportedly is not carrying a specific plan but rather planning to promote any movement towards a political solution.

German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, whose government along with France had called for the meeting, told a German radio interviewer that he believes both Washington and Baghdad are still prepared for last-minute talks.

“The United States is interested in that,” he said. “All signs indicate the Iraqi leadership is also interested. . . . It can be said with good reason that there is still a chance for a meeting between the American secretary of state and the Iraqi leadership.”

Both Washington and Baghdad have indicated a willingness for high-level contacts, but publicly both cling to hard positions.

The White House, backed by a series of U.N. Security Council resolutions, insists that Iraqi troops withdraw from Kuwait unconditionally and that Kuwait’s ruling Sabah family be restored to power. If that is done, Administration officials have said, the American-led forces in the gulf would not attack Iraq and an atmosphere would be created that could lead to resolution of other Mideast problems.

Baghdad argues that the issue of Kuwait can only be resolved in tandem with a broad range of regional confrontations, including the Israeli-Palestinian problem. In public comments, however, President Hussein and his top officials say that Kuwait, which has been proclaimed a province of Iraq, will never be given up.

Times staff writer Norman Kempster in Washington contributed to this article.