Word: gorbachev
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...George Bush prepared to launch a ground war, Mikhail Gorbachev made one last attempt to broker peace between Iraq and the allies. Once again he dispatched his personal adviser, Yevgeni Primakov, to Baghdad, and then agreed to see Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz in Moscow. The Kremlin desperately tried to persuade Saddam that he must comply with the U.N. Security Council resolutions or face the terrible consequences of a ground battle. Here is Primakov's account of those last, tense days...
...Iraq" and declarations about Iraq's "unshakable" stand, I asked to be left alone with Saddam. Then I said to him, "The Americans are determined to launch a large-scale ground operation to crush Iraqi forces in Kuwait." Politics, I reminded him, was the art of the possible. On Gorbachev's instructions, I made a proposal: to announce the pullout of troops from Kuwait. The deadline should be the shortest possible, and the withdrawal should be total and without conditions...
Meeting with Gorbachev, Foreign Minister Alexander Bessmertnykh and me in Moscow on the morning of Feb. 18, Aziz said that in spite of the brutal strike inflicted upon Iraq, it would not surrender -- and that was final. "Your stand seems very inconsistent," said Gorbachev. "On the one hand, this is an important step toward a political settlement, since you acknowledge Resolution 660, calling for an unconditional withdrawal. On the other hand, your positions seem to include preconditions for that withdrawal." Gorbachev also wanted to know why the withdrawal statement "did not use the word Kuwait...
...pullout that should be as short as possible. The withdrawal would begin immediately after the cessation of armed actions and would have "no strings attached." With one exception: a guarantee that troops departing from Kuwait would not be attacked -- "shot in the back." Said Gorbachev: "The timing is crucial. If you cherish the lives of your countrymen and the fate of Iraq, then you must act without delay...
...indication that the talks would not be easy, Saddam Hussein gave an inconsistent and emotional speech over the radio in which he repeated the whole set of accusations and threats. Still, Aziz returned to Moscow around midnight and was brought directly from the airport to the Kremlin for talks. Gorbachev never got to leave the office that night. They blocked out a few general areas of agreement. The main one was that Iraq accepted Resolution 660 and was prepared to remove all its armed forces from Kuwait. However, the Iraqis claimed that they would be unable to complete the withdrawal...