Iraq Seeks Closer Ties With Ex-Foe Iran

Iraq's foreign minister yesterday sought help from Iran in cracking the U.N.-imposed embargo on Baghdad, but the United States and Soviet Union renewed their commitment to the sanctions.

Syria's official news agency reported that a series of 46 explosions were heard in the Iraqi town of Al-Qaim near the border, resulting in an undetermined number of casualties. ABC News identified the site of the blasts as the al-Qaim chemical plant.

The official Iraqi News Agency denied the report of explosions in Al-Qaim.

Last month, Polish workers returning home from Iraq reported that about 35 Americans were brought to the chemical plant in Al-Qaim on Aug. 17 under guard. It was not known whether any Westerners are still being held as human shields at the plant.

Also yesterday, more Americans flew to freedom after being held in Iraq and Kuwait. Hundreds are still held as human shields against U.S. and other forces building up in the Persian Gulf region since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait five weeks ago.

Denmark's ambassador in Kuwait left his besieged embassy yesterday. Iraqi forces that invaded Kuwait August 2 are trying to starve diplomats out of the U.S. and other embassies.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz met with Iranian officials in Tehran, Iran's capital, in the first official Iraqi visit since the two countries went to war in 1980. The fighting ended in a cease-fire in August 1988.

Sources in Tehran, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Aziz was likely to ask Iranian officials to allow shipments of food and medicine into his country. The U.N. embargo permits only humanitarian shipments of such supplies.

The trip by Aziz paves the way for a meeting between Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani to sign a peace treaty officially ending hostilities.

Peace talks bogged down until Saddam last month began pulling troops out of Iranian territory and exchanging prisoners. The move apparently freed up hundreds of thousands of Iraqi troops along the two countries' 750-mile border for possible deployment in the Persian Gulf crisis.

In yesterday's talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati reiterated his country's condemnation of the invasion of Kuwait. But he also criticized the presence of U.S. and other foreign forces building up in the Persian Gulf, according to Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency.

Iran's radical parliament speaker, Mehdi Karribui, warned of Moslem terrorist acts against U.S. interests unless Washington withdraws its forces from the gulf, IRNA reported.

Another warning of terrorist attacks came from the leader of a faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Abul Abbas, head of the Palestine Liberation Front, told the American news network CNN that his group could launch attacks "if the United States initiates the attack on the Arab people and on us."

In another indication that Iraq was hurting from the U.N.-imposed sanctions, the Baghdad government is cracking down on black marketeers.

Iraqi newspapers yesterday published a government decree saying anyone hoarding food or gouging prices on scarce food will face jail terms of up to 15 years. Food rationing already is underway.

In Helsinki, Finland, President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev agreed anew yesterday on "the path that the U.N. has set" in forcing Iraq to pull its troops out of Kuwait.

But the superpower leaders stopped short of asking each other to take any immediate specific measures to force Iraq from Kuwait.

The joint summit statement called for international monitoring of any humanitarian shipments of food or medicine into Iraq as permitted under the U.N. embargo.

An American Red Cross spokesperson, Ann Stingle, said her organization will not participate in monitoring such shipments. The decision was made because Iraq last week refused to allow Swiss Red Cross officials to visit foreigners held in Iraq and Kuwait, she said in Washington.

Iraq's one million-member army has deployed an estimated 260,000 troops along with hundreds of tanks in and around Kuwait since seizing its oil-rich southern neighbor in a dispute over oil, land and money.

About 100,000 U.S. soldiers are dug into the Saudi Arabian desert south of the Kuwaiti border along with several thousand Arab troops. Scores of U.S. and other warships have assembled in the Persian Gulf region, where they are enforcing the U.N.-sanctioned embargo on trade with Iraq.

Six French combat helicopters and 100 soldiers began heading for Saudi Arabia yesterday. France has deployed more than 7000 troops in the gulf region, most of them aboard warships.

The flow of refugees from Iraq and Kuwait continued yesterday. Thousands more Asians and Arabs crossed into Turkey and Jordan and more American women and children were scheduled to fly out of Iraq.

A U.S.-chartered flight carrying about 300 Americans landed in Frankfurt, West Germany, early yesterday from Amman, Jordan. After refueling, the flight took off for Charleston, S.C.

An Iraqi Airways jumbo jet carrying 426 evacuees--including 170 Americans--left Baghdad bound for London, said officials at Gatwick airport near London.