Soviets Trying New Steps to End Conflict

The Soviet Union, afraid that the war in the Persian Gulf could spread through the Middle East and become protracted with mounting casualties, is stepping up its diplomatic efforts to secure a political resolution, probably based on a cease-fire and Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait, a senior member of the Soviet leadership said Saturday.

Alexander S. Dzasokhov, a member of the Communist Party’s Politburo, said that Moscow is trying in new contacts with the United States, the European Community and Arab states to shape an initiative that would attempt to end the war quickly through negotiations at the United Nations and to promote an overall settlement of the Middle East conflict on this basis.

“We need to complement our efforts, both in substance and in intensity, with something extra, something new,” Dzasokhov told The Times in an interview.

“I can’t say that we have a new formula for such a Soviet initiative, and in general we can only talk about a multilateral initiative, perhaps a larger role for the United Nations Security Council and for the Arab states.”

Dzasokhov said that Moscow is attracted by a working proposal for “a withdrawal (of Iraqi troops from Kuwait) and a cease-fire that would be tied to a new round of discussions, a new focusing of the attention of the international community, predominantly the U.N. Security Council, on an overall settlement in the region.”

Carefully distancing itself from the United States almost from the outset of the war 10 days ago, the Soviet Union has increased its diplomatic efforts at achieving a political resolution and, with the resulting momentum, promoting an overall settlement in the Middle East.

“Imagine that all hostilities have ceased and Iraq has withdrawn from Kuwait,” Dzasokhov said. “Wouldn’t we then face the broader necessity of considering the entire situation in the Middle East and resolving that whole complex of problems?”

Dzasokhov, who is also chairman of the Soviet Parliament’s International Affairs Commission, said that Moscow is not directly linking the Persian Gulf crisis with the Arab-Israeli conflict but that it felt that “a global settlement” offered the best prospect of peace in the region.

“Even before these hostilities, in the course of the efforts to prevent them, new views emerged that we should take a broader look at the situation, right down to inclusion of the Mideast conflict in attempts to reach a settlement,” Dzasokhov said.

The Soviet Union continues to support the U.N. resolutions demanding Iraq’s complete and unconditional withdrawal from Kuwait and authorizing the use of force to expel its troops, Soviet officials have stressed.

But Moscow has grown increasingly concerned that hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians would be killed in a protracted war, that extensive damage would be done to an important region of the world economy, that environmental damage could be equally severe and that the Arab-Israeli conflict would be even further from resolution, particularly if Israel joined the war.

“These concerns don’t quite cancel our adherence to the spirit of the resolution of the U.N. Security Council that states the necessity to push Iraq out of Kuwait,” Dzasokhov said. “But it raises different questions for us and for other countries--first of all, what steps can be taken to stop the war and, at least, prevent it from widening.

“With the danger that is now appearing of a long-term war, strong and well thought out initiatives are required to reactivate the political means of resolution.”

Dzasokhov said the Soviet Union believes that the U.N. Security Council, which decided to use force to expel Iraq from Kuwait, would probably be the best forum in which to pursue a settlement if a new initiative drew the wide support for which Moscow is now canvassing.

Alexander A. Bessmertnykh, the Soviet foreign minister, said that the gulf situation will be high on the agenda in his weekend meetings with Secretary of State James A. Baker III for regular Soviet-American consultations and then on Monday with President Bush.

“On the whole, we adhere to the U.N. Security Council resolutions, but there are apprehensions that we are entering the second, serious phase of the conflict when, in addition to the task of liberating Kuwait envisaged in the Security Council resolutions, there is a growing threat that Iraq is subject to very grave damage . . . as well as a growing danger for the country’s civilian population,” Bessmertnykh said.

Bessmertnykh had told a high-level delegation from the Palestine Liberation Organization on Friday that Moscow felt a “formula” could be worked out for Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait and that this would lay the basis for a broad Middle East settlement, including the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Bessmertnykh’s comments, a careful step beyond Moscow’s previous position, were intended to entice the PLO, one of Iraq’s few friends in the Arab world, and others to join in shaping an initiative, Soviet diplomats said.

At the same time, Moscow is reactivating its contacts with Baghdad, according to diplomats here.

“We are telling them, ‘You have now seen what 10 days of bombing can do. For the sake of your people and your country, end it now by agreeing to pull out of Kuwait. You will not only save your country from devastation but promote a Middle East settlement,’ ” a Soviet Middle East specialist said. “This is a proposal they ignored for months and months, but maybe the bombs have led them to reconsider.”

Dzasokhov, a former Soviet ambassador to Syria, acknowledged a “commonality” of Soviet and American interests in the Gulf War, notably in the establishment of a new international order in which “no state is able to use force against another, to occupy it or annex it.”

But he said that the two countries have a much different set of priorities in the region that must be recognized, for these will limit cooperation.

The United States and its allies need the region’s oil and gas, while the Soviet Union does not, Dzasokhov said, and this fundamental difference means that the two superpowers develop much different relationships with the countries in the region.

“The fact is that the United States has its own set of priorities and these should not be directly tied to implementing the U.N. resolutions,” Dzasokhov said.

He made clear Moscow’s unhappiness at the implication that it had agreed to allow the U.S. and its allies to use force to do anything more than the restoration of Kuwait sovereignty and independence.