French Envoy Meets Hussein in Baghdad

A French lawmaker, on what he described as a private mission to Iraq, met for 4 1/2 hours Saturday with Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein in a session that could provide Secretary of State James A. Baker III with a fresh assessment of the Iraqi leader’s position before he begins critical talks with the Iraqi Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz in Geneva on Wednesday.

Although French politician Michel Vauzelle, chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the French National Assembly, described his visit to Iraq as “strictly personal,” it was not treated that way by Iraq, which received Vauzelle as though he were an official envoy and granted him extensive audiences with both Hussein and Aziz.

“You saw by the length of the meeting,” Vauzelle told French television reporters after meeting with Hussein, “that it was obviously a very important discussion.”

Vauzelle said he would meet with French President Francois Mitterrand today “to fill him in on the nature of the discussions (with Hussein).” Baker is scheduled to stop in Paris on Tuesday to meet with Mitterrand before traveling to Geneva for the talks with Aziz.

Because of Vauzelle’s close relationship with Mitterrand as a longtime political supporter and former official spokesman, it is generally believed that his mission to Iraq was initiated by the French president as a last-minute gesture to spark dialogue before the Jan. 15 deadline set by the United Nations for an Iraqi pullout from Kuwait. Privately, French officials say they consider the Vauzelle mission an important move for French diplomacy.

“It was a very thorough and useful meeting,” the French news agency, Agence France-Presse, quoted a French diplomat in Baghdad as saying Saturday night, after Vauzelle’s encounter with Hussein.

There was speculation here that Vauzelle may also have represented an American attempt to assess Iraq’s position before Wednesday’s Baker-Aziz meeting.