Baker Won’t Extend Iraq Deadline

Secretary of State James A. Baker III, buoyed by new assertions of allied support, today ruled out any extension of the Jan. 15 deadline for Iraq to end its occupation of Kuwait or “be forced out.”

Baker said “the only real chance that we have for peace . . . is if Saddam Hussein begins to understand that that deadline is real and that we are serious.”

Eight days before the deadline, after which the use of force against Iraq has been authorized by the U.N. Security Council, Baker said, “I am less optimistic that we might achieve a peaceful solution than I was before Christmas.”

But he added, “We are still going to work toward that end.”

Dismissing a threat Sunday by the Iraqi president to bomb Jerusalem and to unleash “freedom fighters” around the world, Baker said, “He has been saying these things before.”

Baker, on the first leg of a trip to 11 countries, including Switzerland for a face-to-face meeting Wednesday with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz, received fresh assurances of support from British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd and NATO Secretary General Manfred Woerner.

Calling Britain’s position identical to that of the Bush Administration, Hurd said after a two-hour luncheon at Carlton Gardens that “the basic rule must be that one nation-state does not trample on and wipe out another nation-state.”

Woerner, after a meeting with Baker in a mid-town hotel, said: “Our member countries remain in complete solidarity. . . . There is not the slightest rift.”

Even so, Baker must deal on his eight-day trip with a move spearheaded by France and backed by Germany and Italy to offer Hussein an eventual international conference on the Palestinians and other Mideast issues if he removes the 500,000 Iraqi troops from Kuwait by next Tuesday.

Hussein on Sunday said he is struggling for the liberation of Palestine from Israel and told Iraqi soldiers to be ready for a long fight.

Baker, on his way to Geneva for the Aziz meeting, will confer on Tuesday with French President Francois Mitterrand in Paris, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in Bonn and Italian Foreign Minister Gianni De Michelis in Milan.

Baker also met here with Foreign Ministers Francisco Fernandez Ordonez of Spain and Jacques Poos of Luxembourg.