No 11th-Hour Diplomatic Mission to Iraq, EC Decides : Europe: The foreign ministers also warn that aid to the Soviet Union is in jeopardy because of the crackdown in Lithuania.

European Community foreign ministers, heeding advice of the U.N. secretary-general, decided today not to send an eleventh-hour diplomatic mission to Iraq because the “climate” is not right.

The EC foreign ministers also addressed the weekend violence in Lithuania, warning that EC technical aid and cooperation agreements with the Soviet Union would be cut off if Soviet troops again used force in the Baltics.

The decision by the 12-nation EC on the gulf peace mission followed a meeting in Paris between U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, returning from Baghdad, and Foreign Minister Jacques Poos of Luxembourg, who holds the rotating EC presidency.

Poos, addressing a news conference after the EC meeting, said, “Mr. Perez de Cuellar felt this was not the time for any new initiatives and the situation should be left in the hands of the U.N. Security Council.”

Before the meeting of EC foreign ministers, some European officials sought a last-minute mission to Baghdad by a “troika” of EC foreign ministers, representing the past, present and next presidencies of the Community.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz earlier rejected an invitation to meet in Algeria with the EC “troika” of Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

Regarding Lithuania, the EC foreign ministers issued “an urgent appeal to the Soviet authorities to refrain from the use of force, resume the path of dialogue and end the military intervention.”

If the situation is “prolonged in any way or extended to the other Baltic states,” the EC said, it would “suspend the implementation” of technical aid, as well as trade and cooperation agreements with the Soviet Union. At an EC summit in Rome last month, Community leaders approved $1 billion in food aid and $520 million in technical assistance for the Soviet Union.