Word: gorbachev
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...ties to Saddam were taken into account when President Gorbachev instructed me in early October to go to Baghdad as his personal representative to help resolve the Kuwait crisis. I was accompanied by the deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers, Igor Belousov. We had two objectives: to reach an agreement to allow our 7,830 military and industrial specialists based in Iraq to leave, and to show Saddam the total hopelessness of refusing to abide by the Security Council's demands. We also wanted to look for a way to bring about the withdrawal of the Iraqi forces from...
...talk with Saddam took place in the Presidential Palace on Oct. 5. Deeply engrossed in the written message from President Gorbachev, Saddam did not react directly to the fairly strong phrases in it about the need to get immediately out of Kuwait and to restore the sovereignty of that state. But the atmosphere at the beginning of the talk was tense...
After returning to Moscow on the evening of Oct. 6, I informed President Gorbachev in detail about the meetings in Baghdad. Once he heard my oral report, he told us to draw up proposals, hoping to continue the peace mission. I submitted my ideas...
Shortly before I left Washington, President Gorbachev called to say I should stop in London to see Margaret Thatcher. The Prime Minister received us at her country residence, Chequers. She listened attentively to the information I presented her, without interrupting. But then, for a good hour, she allowed no one to interrupt her monologue, in which she outlined in a most condensed way a position that was gaining greater momentum: not to limit things to a withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait but to inflict a devastating blow at Iraq, "to break the back" of Saddam and destroy the entire...
When I arrived back in Moscow, I reported the results of the trip to Gorbachev. My main conclusion: the barometer of the situation was clearly & pointing to a military solution. The President instructed me to continue the mission, and I left for Cairo, Damascus, Riyadh and Baghdad...