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

DATE: TUESDAY, February 5, 1991                   TAG: 9102050200
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Baltimore Sun
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

U.S. COOL TO MEDIATION BY IRAN

Iran's president offered Monday to mediate between the United States and Iraq in hopes of ending the gulf war. He drew a frosty reaction from the United States, but encouragement from the Soviet Union and the U.N. secretary-general.

President Hashemi Rafsanjani told a news conference in Tehran that while discussions over the weekend with Iraq's deputy prime minister, Saadoun Hammadi, had disclosed "no sign of flexibility," he had sent some Iranian ideas back to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein through Hammadi.

He said he was willing to meet Saddam and also to talk indirectly to the United States, with which Iran does not have diplomatic relations.

"If there is hope for the salvation of the Iraqi nation, why shouldn't I meet Saddam?" Rafsanjani was quoted as saying. He also said that "creating security in the region, without securing Iran's views, is not possible." Iran fought a bitter eight-year war with Iraq, but its leaders remain vocally hostile toward the United States.

Tehran has been a hub of diplomatic activity in recent days, with high-level envoys arriving from France, Algeria and Yemen, in addition to Iraq.

But U.S. officials said Monday that the latest efforts would be fruitless unless they somehow altered Saddam's refusal to surrender Kuwait.

"What's to mediate?" asked State Department spokesman Margaret Tutwiler. "We do not, as you know, intend to walk back from [the] 12 United Nations resolutions, and the only mediation, in our opinion, that would be appropriate would be for the people who communicate with Saddam Hussein to convince him to comply" with the resolutions.

Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman Vitaly Churkin told a news conference in Moscow that he welcomed the idea of a meeting between the presidents of Iran and Iraq.

And U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar told reporters in New York: "I think Iran is in a good position to produce a formula which could put an end to the present situation."

by CNB