Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 14, 1991 TAG: 9102140166
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MOSCOW LENGTH: Medium
Elsewhere, the foreign ministers of Iran and Saudi Arabia and Pakistan's prime minister flew to Geneva on Wednesday. Diplomats would not say whether the visits were linked to a peace initiative.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz is to arrive Sunday and will meet with Gorbachev the following day, Soviet officials said. It will be the first visit to Moscow by such a high-ranking Iraqi official since the war began.
The visit follows a diplomatic mission to Baghdad this week by Gorbachev's envoy, Yvegeny Primakov.
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein told Primakov that Iraq was ready to cooperate with the Soviets in their efforts to reach a settlement, Baghdad radio reported.
He also told Primakov that the Soviets bear "political, legal and moral responsibility for the brutal crimes" against Iraq because they approved U.N. Security Council resolutions supporting military action, the radio said.
When he returned to Moscow on Wednesday night, Primakov refused to comment about his negotiations with Saddam.
"I don't want to jeopardize the process," he told reporters. "The process makes us hopeful because the process has begun. We are against the war and we want to stop it."
Primakov also said that during a meeting with an aide to Saddam he raised "in very sharp form" the issue of American POWs held by Iraq.
"I said it is a violation of morality and the Geneva conventions and is counterproductive because it turns public opinion against him," Primakov said. "In response, they told me that Americans are bombing residential areas, which is also a violation of the Geneva conventions."
Vitaly Ignatenko, a Kremlin spokesman, told reporters Aziz's trip was intended "to continue the Soviet-Iraq contact."
Another Kremlin spokesman, Sergei Grigoriev, said: "The essence of the Soviet plan will never go beyond the limits of the U.N. Security Council resolution obliging Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait and restore the independence of Kuwait."
Iraq has refused to negotiate a cease-fire conditioned on a withdrawal from Kuwait, which Western leaders demand.
Also arriving in Moscow was Kuwait's foreign minister, Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah, who is to meet with Gorbachev today. Vitaly Churkin, a Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman, said the trip had been scheduled long before the Primakov mission.
Churkin said the Soviet Union was not trying to be a mediator, but "is trying to do everything possible to try to cease bloodshed as soon as possible and to achieve the full implementation of the Security Council resolutions."
by CNB