Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev swept back onto the political scene Friday, denouncing Iraq's "perfidy" in invading Kuwait.
Tanned and vigorous after 17 days of vacation in the Crimea, Gorbachev told a military audience in the Black Sea port city of Odessa that the Soviet Union would try to defuse the Persian Gulf crisis by means of diplomacy and participation in international actions."We intend to to act exclusively in the framework of collective effort aimed at settling this conflict," he said.
Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, speaking in Moscow after meeting with his West German counterpart, said his country could send troops to the Persian Gulf region if the United Nations sponsors a multinational force and the Soviet Union approves the plan.
Gorbachev, in an hourlong speech aired on national television, said that when Iraq invaded Kuwait, "we witnessed an act of perfidy and a blatant violation of international law and the U.N. Charter - in short, a violation of everything the world community now pins its hopes on."
He noted that the Soviet Union bears special responsibility because it sold Iraq weapons that were used in the invasion.
Soviet officials have given tacit consent to the buildup of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf and the U.S.-led naval blockade of Iraq, but they have shown no eagerness to send in their forces. They have appealed repeatedly for a peaceful solution.
Shevardnadze reiterated the Kremlin's call for the Military Staff Committee of the U.N. Security Council to deal with the gulf crisis, and said the U.S. officials hetalks with daily support the idea.
"Now we have a pretty good mutual understanding on this with the United States," he told reporters.
In his address, Gorbachev raised the possibility that under military reforms beginning next year, the 4 million-strong Soviet army might be transformed into a smaller, all-volunteer force.
"Our armed forces were established to handle the tasks of the Cold War, (and) that war is over now," he told his audience after observing war games near the Black Sea coast.
He also called publicly for a massive selloff of state property to spur economic reform.
After he left Moscow for the Crimean Peninsula in the Soviet south, it was announced that Gorbachev had agreed with his populist critic Boris N. Yeltsin, the president of the Russian republic, to oversee jointly an economic rescue program, a move some thought signaled the radicalization of Gorbachev. His televised remarks seemed to confirm that.
"We should see the task of selling off state property as our first priority," Gorbachev said.