Bush Won’t Compromise on Kuwait : Diplomacy: Soviet emissary visits President, says there’s still hope for a non-military solution.

WASHINGTON — With Iraqi President Saddam Hussein hinting at a possible Persian Gulf compromise, President Bush insisted Friday he is “as determined as I was when the first troops left” that Iraq fully withdraw from Kuwait and that no lesser solution is possible.

“We are going to stay with this, stay the course, and send a strong moral message out there,” the President said as he prepared to meet with Soviet emissary Yevgeny Primakov.

Primakov, who met with Hussein in Baghdad two weeks ago, said after his session with Bush that he brought no peace plan from Iraq but that he still believes there is some hope for a non-military resolution of the gulf crisis.

“We should not rule out the possibilities of a peaceful solution until we have exhausted all options,” said Primakov, who told reporters the Soviet Union fully supports the U.S.-led international coalition against Iraq.

Bush’s firm rejection of any deal that would reward Iraq for its invasion of Kuwait came amid recurrent reports from the Middle East that Hussein is searching for a formula that would let him retain key Kuwaiti territory.

U.S. officials have acknowledged that Hussein has signaled his willingness to pull Iraqi forces out of Kuwait in return for control of border areas, including a desert oil field and offshore islands that would give Iraq enhanced naval access to Persian Gulf waters.

“I think we’ve sent a very strong signal. . . . The bottom line is, he can’t prevail,” the President told a group of Italian-American community leaders at the White House.

“One big country can’t bully its neighbor and take it over, and that’s the principle we are fighting for,” Bush added.

Later, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater told reporters that Bush repeated his rejection of a partial solution to the gulf crisis in his meeting with Primakov. Fitzwater said the President also stressed Washington’s insistence that Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait must not be linked to Israel’s continuing occupation of Arab territory taken in the 1967 Middle East War.

The spokesman said Bush discussed with Primakov the status of the international sanctions against Iraq while stressing the need to maintain “alternative options” should peaceful pressures fail.

The President rejected “any partial solution to the blatant aggression that Iraq has perpetrated against Kuwait,” Fitzwater said. “Iraq must withdraw unconditionally, and the legitimate government of Kuwait must be returned to power. Similarly, there will be no linkage of the gulf crisis to any other issue.”

Responding to questions, Fitzwater said the Soviets “are supportive of our idea that this issue cannot be linked to the Israeli question. . . . We are quite firm on the no-linkage situation, and I think the Soviets understand that position on our part.”

Fitzwater noted that during Primakov’s Oct. 6 meeting with Hussein, the two discussed the status of several thousand Soviet citizens, including 93 military advisers, who had been assisting Iraq on a contract basis.

The White House spokesman suggested that the Administration now considers Soviet citizens still in Iraq to be hostages, along with the hundreds of American and Western European citizens still trapped in Iraq and Kuwait.

“They’re in the same position we are,” Fitzwater said. “Their citizens are being held hostage just like ours.”