Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, February 16, 1991                   TAG: 9102160310
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LONDON                                LENGTH: Medium

ALLIES COOL TO IRAQ OFFER

British Prime Minister John Major dismissed it a "bogus sham." The French foreign minister, Roland Dumas, said the allies should study it carefully, "all the while taking care that it's not a trick."

Nevertheless, some leaders, notably Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, said they remained hopeful of a peaceful solution. A statement from Gorbachev's press office said Moscow greeted the Iraqi offer "with satisfaction and hope."

Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti said in a written statement that recent Soviet contacts with Baghdad "lead one to consider that a political way out of the crisis is possible."

Euphoria swept financial markets after the first reports of Baghdad's proposal, but faded as Iraq's list of conditions became known. Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein linked a withdrawal from Kuwait to an allied pullout from the region and an Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab territories.

The United States already has firmly rejected such linkage.

Some leaders called on the allies to look upon the Iraqi move as sincere.

India's prime minister, Chandra Shekhar, urged the allies to call an immediate cease-fire, and said Iraq should simultaneously announce a timetable for withdrawal.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi also accepted the offer as genuine and said Iraq "has a right not to be in a hurry until it gets assured that Kuwait will never be handed to the U.S. or another quarter."

But members of the alliance arrayed against Iraq appeared unanimously opposed to accepting the Iraqi offer at face value, and insisted that they would accept nothing short of Iraq's unconditional withdrawal from Kuwait.

"They must withdraw without condition," Bush said. "There must be full implementation of all the Security Council resolutions, and there will be no linkage to other problems in the area."

French President Francois Mitterrand, in a statement issued by his spokesman, said: "At this point, any Iraqi proposition which . . . adds conditions cannot be considered."

The United Nations Security Council discussed the offer in a closed session Friday. Some nations said the Iraq statement merited a cease-fire. Others dismissed it as a ploy to buy time.

Cuba circulated a draft cease-fire resolution demanding that bombing of Iraq stop at once. It called for a Security Council committee to explore ways to end the war and asked the secretary-general to renew his mediation efforts.

The United States and Britain probably would veto the resolution if it came to a vote.