Aziz Arrives in Moscow; U.S. Stands Firm

President Bush and his top advisers offered little hope Sunday for a diplomatic solution to the Gulf War as Iraqi Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz arrived in Moscow for talks today with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Aziz and other Iraqi diplomats continued to press for negotiations on Baghdad’s offer, made Friday, to withdraw from Kuwait if a series of conditions are met. Aziz said Sunday that he was not carrying any new proposal to Moscow.

“We have taken our step, and now is the turn of the other side to show its goodwill,” Aziz told reporters in Tehran, according to Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency. Aziz had traveled overland from Baghdad to Iran, where he boarded a Soviet Aeroflot jetliner bound for Moscow.

Also on Sunday, Abdul Razik Hashimi, Iraq’s ambassador to France, said that the series of conditions attached to Baghdad’s offer to pull out of Kuwait were intended, in effect, as an opening offer meant to lead to negotiations.

“You see, it’s a package. It’s a proposal,” Hashimi said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “So those concerned, if they have questions, of course it’s normal. They should sit (at) the negotiating table to ask these questions, and then Iraq will answer, and Iraq also (can ask) questions of the other side.”

However, with U.S. military forces reported to be poised to launch a ground attack against Kuwait and southern Iraq, the President and other Administration officials made it plain once again that they do not intend to enter into any new negotiations with Iraq.

Speaking to reporters during a brisk walk along the beach in Kennebunkport, Me., where he is spending the weekend, Bush reiterated that “we are determined to finish this job and do it right--fulfill what I’ve said are our objectives, with no concession, no pulling back.”

In separate television interviews, National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney all emphasized that only Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s immediate and unconditional withdrawal of his forces from Kuwait can bring a halt to the U.S. and allied military operations against Iraq.

“The terms are very clear, very straightforward. He must withdraw unconditionally and totally,” Scowcroft said. “. . . He cannot be rewarded for the terrible things that he has perpetrated in the Gulf.”

Aziz’s trip to Moscow is his first foreign journey since the war began a month ago and, while he waited for his flight in Tehran, he met for half an hour with his Iranian counterpart, Ali Akbar Velayati, who had returned from Moscow on Saturday.

Aziz’s flight arrived in Moscow shortly before midnight Sunday. The Iraqi official was met at the airport by Soviet Foreign Minister Alexander A. Bessmertnykh, but neither man commented on Aziz’s scheduled meeting with Gorbachev today.

The Soviet Union and Iran have tried to keep the diplomatic door open for last-minute contacts with the Iraqi regime before the start of an expected ground war. Both have deep geopolitical interests in the Gulf region and hope to play important roles in postwar diplomacy. Neither wants Iraqi power to be completely crushed in combat, fearing that the vacuum will be filled by Western interests.

Yet in spite of expressing early approval of Baghdad’s Friday initiative, Moscow has shown no sign that Iraq’s heavily conditioned formula is acceptable. Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman Vitaly I. Churkin said the formula, made by Iraq’s ruling Revolutionary Command Council that Hussein heads, offered “a starting point in movement toward peace,” but agreed with the United States and its principal Gulf allies that the conditions demanded are “likely to render it meaningless.”

These conditions included a pullout of allied forces from the Gulf, an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, withdrawal by Syria of its forces from Lebanon, payment to Baghdad of war reparations by the Gulf allies, and a postwar government in Kuwait acceptable to Iraq.

In his CBS appearance, Hashimi, the Iraqi ambassador to France, insisted that Iraq “will never surrender unconditionally.”

He suggested the United States and its allies would be better off negotiating with Iraq than they would be if they launched a ground war against that country.

“President Saddam Hussein offered a chance to President Bush to save American lives and to save the American soldier’s life. If he (Bush) doesn’t want to take that chance, that’s going to be his problem and his responsibility,” Hashimi said.

Bush told reporters in Kennebunkport that “the only good news” out of Iraq’s peace offer Friday “was, for the first time, they talked about withdrawal and they did not reassert their position that Kuwait was Province 19. That’s positive.”

However, he went on, “they should have done it on about the first week in August, and they should have got out.”

Top Administration officials took pains to emphasize that there will be no pause or slowdown of U.S. military operations during Aziz’s visit to Moscow.

“We have a certain tempo to our military operations now, and that tempo is important to maintain to save allied lives,” Scowcroft asserted. “Now, we’re not going to break that tempo, unless it is clear that he (Hussein) is complying with the Security Council directive” to get out of Kuwait.

Baker, appearing on CNN’s “Newsmaker Sunday,” said that the Administration had talked with Soviet officials over the weekend. He predicted Moscow will continue to support the U.S. position.

“Frankly, I think the Soviets are going to continue to adopt the same position that they have adopted since the 3rd of August, when former Foreign Minister (Eduard A.) Shevardnadze stood shoulder to shoulder with us, supporting the call for an immediate withdrawal by Iraq from Kuwait,” the secretary of state said.

U.S. officials also stressed that any Iraqi withdrawal would have to be speedy.

“He has to get out fast,” Scowcroft said. “ . . . Fast means fast. Fast doesn’t mean to try to seek something to get a cease-fire and a cessation of operations so that, if he chooses, instead of getting out, he can regroup his forces (and) reinforce them.”

Times staff writers David Lauter in Kennebunkport, Me., and Nick B. Williams Jr. in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this story.