Word: aziz
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President Gorbachev put forward a specific plan for a political resolution of the crisis. He suggested a formula providing for the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait without preconditions and without the continuation of war. This time there was not the usual rhetoric from Aziz. He took the firm Soviet stand calmly, almost in a businesslike manner, showing no signs of displeasure. Aziz then returned to Baghdad to confer with Saddam. Three days later, on Thursday, Feb. 21, he flew back to Moscow with a reply. After another meeting between Aziz and Gorbachev, the U.S.S.R. emerged from the meeting with...
...secret. I first met him in 1969, when I was working as a Pravda correspondent in the Middle East. At that time, he was not yet the President, but he had already become one of the most influential members in the Iraqi leadership. I also became closely acquainted with Aziz, who then served as editor in chief of Ath-Thawra, the main newspaper of the Baath Party...
Those were unstable times. The wing of the Baath Party in which Saddam and Aziz were members had just come to power. In the offices of both men there were submachine guns. Even at that stage, many features of Saddam's character were clearly evident, features that were preserved and developed further when he became the leader of Iraq. He possessed a firmness that often turned into cruelty, a strong will bordering on implacable stubbornness, a readiness to go charging toward his goal, regardless of obstacles and the price, and an overblown understanding of such concepts as honor and dignity...
...Aziz met us at the airport. I talked with him for several hours, and the session was probably the toughest I've ever had with an Iraqi official. He focused entirely on trying to prove that Kuwait belonged to Iraq from the point of view of history, politics and economics. He spoke about how certain other Arab states "purposefully," as Aziz emphasized, made Iraq act the way it did. I thought to myself how Aziz, arriving in Moscow in 1980 a few days after the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war, had tried to prove to me that...
...Aziz's monologue one could easily hear the sharp note of displeasure and dissatisfaction with the policy of the Soviet Union, which "should have acted in a different way, considering its treaty with Iraq." But when we asked Aziz why Iraq had not notified Moscow before it intervened in Kuwait, he sidestepped the question...