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

DATE: SUNDAY, April 7, 1991                   TAG: 9104070104
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NICOSIA, CYPRUS                                LENGTH: Medium

IRAQ ACCEPTS PEACE TERMS

President Bush said the Iraqi letter accepting the truce terms "appears to be positive," but he said U.S. analysts still were reviewing a translation.

Kuwait's U.N. ambassador said he will urge diplomats to reject the Iraqi document, saying it has too many qualifications.

Hundreds of thousands of Kurdish refugees, meanwhile, continued to flee into Iran and Turkey. The Turkish foreign minister said 1,500 had died in flight from Saddam Hussein's forces.

In Baghdad, Saddam reshuffled his government for the second time in as many weeks, naming a son-in-law as defense minister. Analysts said the move was aimed at tightening Saddam's grip on power following the rebellions that broke out after Iraq's rout in the Gulf War.

Word that Iraq had accepted the cease-fire terms came from the Baghdad government's foreign minister, Ahmed Hussein, Iraqi diplomats at the United Nations said.

"Iraq has found itself facing only one choice - that it must accept Resolution 687," said Hussein in a 23-page letter delivered to Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar and Security Council President M. Paul Noterdaeme of Belgium.

The letter, in Arabic, had not been translated into English by U.N. officials, but Iraqi diplomats said it raised numerous legal points and objections. They added, however, that the acceptance was absolute and not conditional.

Mohammad Abulhasan, Kuwait's U.N. ambassador, said he was worried that the letter contains too many conditions. Abulhasan did not specify what problems he had with the Iraqi letter.

Thomas Pickering, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said: "Acceptance produces a feeling of some happiness, tempered with caution. We want to look very carefully at what Iraq has said."

Bush, in Houston, said portions of the letter objecting to the severity of the U.N. conditions amount to "some griping . . . but that is just too bad."

Iraq's acceptance paves the way for the 100,000 U.S. troops occupying southern Iraq to begin withdrawing.

The resolution demands that Iraq destroy its chemical and biological weapons and most ballistic missiles under U.N. supervision, and that it not acquire such weapons or nuclear capability in the future.

An arms embargo remains in effect and a trade embargo would remain until the weapons are destroyed.

Iraq also is to pay war reparations to Kuwait out of its future oil revenues, recognize the current Kuwaiti border, swear off support of terrorism and cooperate in repatriating Kuwaitis and others it has detained.

U.N. observers will monitor a demilitarized zone extending six miles into Iraq and three miles into Kuwait.

Perez de Cuellar proposed a 300-member U.N. observer group for the Iraq-Kuwait border, with temporary infantry support of 680 troops and about 300 mine-clearing specialists.

He gave no indication which nations would participate, but diplomats said that four permanent members of the Security Council - the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union - had offered to take part. The fifth permanent member, China, also might participate, they said, along with other nations.

Before word of the Iraqi acceptance, the Iraqi News Agency reported that Saddam had named a cousin and son-in-law, Brig. Gen. Hussein Kamel, to be defense minister.

Kamel was previously minister of industry and military industrialization, in charge of Iraq's military buildup before the war.

In other developments Saturday:

Secretary of State James Baker was to leave on a trip to Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Syria and Geneva for talks on the plight of Kurdish refugees and on Middle East peace. Diplomats said Baker would meet with Jordanian Prime Minister Mudar Badran, possibly in Geneva. It would be the first high-level U.S.-Jordanian contact in nearly eight months, after a cooling of relations over Jordan's sympathy for Saddam.

A host of nations joined in refugee relief efforts. Japan authorized $10 million in refugee relief, and Britain prepared to join the United States in an airdrop of supplies to Kurdish refugees in northern Iraq. Also, two German cargo planes left for Turkey with 20 tons of emergency supplies.