Baker to Confer in Paris Before Meeting Iraqi

PARIS —  Before meeting with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz on Wednesday in Geneva, Secretary of State James A. Baker III will stop in Paris to meet with President Francois Mitterrand and be briefed in detail on a “personal” mission to Baghdad by a French lawmaker who is a longtime political ally of Mitterrand.

The visit to Iraq by Michel Vauzelle, who is chairman of the committee on foreign affairs in the French National Assembly, was extended an extra day Friday so that Vauzelle could meet with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein today.

Vauzelle, who has described his visit as a “personal peace mission” with no official backing from the French government, is nevertheless expected to meet with Mitterrand as soon as he returns from Baghdad on Sunday or Monday. As the latest senior Western official to meet with both Hussein and Aziz, whom he met Thursday in Baghdad, Vauzelle will have the most recent information on the Iraqi position before the critical Baker-Aziz talks on Wednesday.

Although the French government has consistently denied any official connection to the Vauzelle mission, it is generally believed that the longtime Mitterrand confidant would never have undertaken such a mission without the express approval and even encouragement of the president.

With the approach of the critical Jan. 15 deadline for Iraq to pull out of Kuwait, Mitterrand has gone out of his way to stress the independent nature of the French position on the gulf. During his annual New Year’s meeting with French journalists Friday, Mitterrand announced his plans to confer with Baker on Tuesday but emphasized that France’s policy in the gulf would not be “dictated” by the Americans.

Throughout the gulf crisis, President Bush has been careful to involve the 74-year-old French president at every juncture of the complex international diplomatic effort. The two presidents have talked dozens of times since the Iraqi invasion, mostly in telephone calls initiated by Bush.

According to sources at the American Embassy in Paris, President Bush most recently phoned Mitterrand the day after Christmas and again Thursday, after the Baker mission to Geneva was announced.

Meanwhile, Mitterrand said Friday that the U.N. Security Council should hold another meeting on the gulf crisis before Jan. 15 if Iraq continues to ignore the council’s deadline.

The United States and the Soviet Union are strongly opposed to another council meeting, fearing the danger of undermining the resolution adopted in November authorizing military force to drive Iraq from Kuwait.

Times staff writer John Goldman at the United Nations contributed to this article.