Iraq Urged to Accept U.N. Police : Kurds: Under allied pressure, the secretary general meets with Baghdad’s ambassador on a plan to send a security force to refugee camps.

U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, under swelling pressure from impatient British and American leaders, began steps Tuesday to try to persuade Iraq to accept an allied plan for U.N. police to take over security from American and other allied troops at Kurdish relief camps, diplomatic sources said.

After receiving a sharp letter of rebuke from British Prime Minister John Major, Perez de Cuellar met at U.N. headquarters with Iraqi Ambassador Abdul Amir Anbari.

The U.N. police plan, pushed hard by the United States, Britain and France, was obviously a major issue in their discussions. But afterward, Anbari would not comment on his government’s position, telling reporters: “There is nothing to say. This is only an idea, not a formal proposal.”

Iraqi approval is the missing keystone to the U.N. plan. But, while Baghdad publicly disdained the plan Tuesday as another infringement on its sovereignty, Iraqi leaders may feel privately that they have little choice but to go along.

Evidently as a means of applying pressure on Iraq, the U.N. Security Council sanctions committee, clearly under American influence, again refused Tuesday to take up Iraq’s request to be allowed to sell nearly $100 million worth of oil and unfreeze $1 billion worth of assets held in American, Swiss, Japanese and British banks to buy food and medicine.

In his letter to Perez de Cuellar, Prime Minister Major, according to British government sources, complained about the United Nations’ slowness in supplying relief to the Kurds and urged the swift dispatch of a U.N. police force to the scene.

Major warned that thousands of Kurds could still die in the mountains if U.N. personnel do not provide supplies, shelter and security more quickly as the Kurds struggle from mountain camps on the Iraqi-Turkish frontier to an enclave around Zahku in northern Iraq.

The U.N. police plan, first proposed by Major, is a complex and delicate way of bringing U.N. forces into the area without the need to obtain formal approval through a Security Council resolution. The Soviet Union and China might veto such a resolution as interference in Iraq’s internal affairs.

But the two countries seem willing to acquiesce to the transfer of U.N. police to northern Iraq if President Saddam Hussein can be persuaded to accept them. “If the Iraqi government gives permission, why not?” Soviet Ambassador Yuli M. Vorontsov told journalists. Chinese Ambassador Li Daoyu appeared to agree.

The arrival of a U.N. police force, guaranteeing security to the Kurdish refugees still fearful and suspicious of Hussein, would enable U.S. and other allied troops to withdraw.

It is obvious that the Bush Administration--through personal pleas from U.N. Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering and telephone calls from President Bush--has tried hard to dispel Perez de Cuellar’s early doubts about the plan.

At first, the secretary general said that he could not send a U.N. police force--technically, a type of U.N. peacekeeping force--to northern Iraq without authorization from the Security Council. But on Monday he seemed to change his mind, saying, “Perhaps the Security Council is not needed.”

According to U.S. sources, Perez de Cuellar is expected to ask Prince Saddrudin Aga Khan, the head of the U.N. relief operation in Iraq, to go to Baghdad to seek Iraqi approval of the U.N. police force.

Prince Saddrudin negotiated a U.N. relief operation with Iraqi officials in Baghdad 10 days ago, but this agreement stipulated that the Iraqi government, not U.N. forces, would be in charge of security. The use of Iraqi police alone--without U.S. troops or U.N. police nearby--would probably frighten the Kurds away from any relief camp.

In dealing with the Iraqi request to ease sanctions so that the government can buy nearly $2 billion worth of food and medicine, the Security Council sanctions committee simply put off the matter to Friday, at the earliest.

There is little doubt that the United States, a member of the committee, was pleased with the delay. President Bush had told reporters Monday: “There’s not going to be any relief as far as the United States goes until they move forward on a lot of fronts. . . . “

Iraq’s difficulty with the sanctions committee also stems from the accounting of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons that it supplied the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency 10 days ago. The list was regarded as insufficient and misleading by the United States.

New details were sent to the atomic energy agency by Iraq on Monday. According to one report, the Iraqis said all their weapons-grade uranium is buried under rubble from allied bombings during the Gulf War.

The Associated Press quoted U.S. officials as saying that, in their new account, the Iraqis report that the enriched uranium is located in the ruins of Iraq’s two nuclear reactors at Tuwaitha, 20 miles southeast of Baghdad. The uranium is not emitting radiation, the Iraqis reportedly said, but poses a danger to any international inspectors who might try to retrieve it.

In another development, the House on Tuesday authorized $400 million in humanitarian aid for Kurds and other Iraqi refugees who have fled Hussein’s troops.

The Administration-backed legislation, approved without dissent by voice vote, includes $50 million for U.N. security personnel to replace U.S. troops in Iraq.

Times staff writers William Tuohy in London and James Gerstenzang and William J. Eaton in Washington contributed to this article.