Secretary-General discusses 'outline plan' during trip to Teheran, Baghdad.

• Position: Javier Perez de Cuellar; Iran-Iraq conflict

Secretary-General discusses "outline plan' during trip to Teheran, Baghdad

"Big Five' Foreign Ministers call Council resolution 598 "sole basis' for settlement

SECRETARY-GENERAL Javier Perez de Cuellar, during a five-day peace mission to Iran and Iraq in September, presented to both parties an "outline plan' for implementation of Security Council resolution 598. That text, adopted unanimously on 20 July, calls for an immediate cease-fire, an end to all military actions in the region, withdrawal of forces to internationally recognized boundaries, dispatch of a team of United Nations observers to supervice those actions, and consideration of the question of entrusting an impartial body to inquire into responsibility for the conflict (see story, p. 19).

The plan, Mr. Perez de Cuellar reported at a press conference on his return to Headquarters on 16 September, had been "very carefully considered and discussed'. Earlier that day, he had reported in private session to Council members on his mission, which he described as "useful and extremely interesting' and had helped him find out what the two parties "had at the back of their minds'. The Council must now assess the situation according to what he had told them, he added.

A United Nations spokesman on 9 September described the Secretary-General's mission as taking place within the framework of mandates given him by the Security Council to seek prompt implementation of resolution 598.

In Teheran, which he visited from 11 to 13 September, the Secretary-General met President Ali Khamenei, Majlis Speaker Hashemi Rafsanjani, Prime Minister Mir Hussein Moussavi, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati and other senior officials.

In Baghdad from 13 to 15 September, the Secretary-General conferred with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz and senior Foreign Ministry officials.

Mr. Perez de Cuellar told reporters that he had been warmly received in both capitals, and had discussed, at the highest levels, point by point, all of resolution 598. There had also been full discussion of implementation of the resolution. All discussions had been "extremely frank', he said.

In April 1985, the Secretary-General had visited Iran and Iraq to discuss an eight-point peace plan he had proposed a month earlier. The underlying premise of those proposals, he said at that time, was that his "overriding constitutional responsibility' under the Charter was to seek to end the...