Record of a Conversation between M.S. Gorbachev and the General Secretary of the UN J. Pérez de Cuéllar in Paris (excerpt)

RECORD OF A CONVERSATION

between M.S. Gorbachev and the General Secretary of the UN,

J. Pérez de Cuéllar

Paris, 19 November 1990

The conversation took place in the Elysée Palace after a ceremony for the signing of the Treaty on Conventional Military Forces in Europe and a Joint Declaration by twenty-two states.  Edward Shevardnadze took part in the conversation.

J. PERES de CUELLAR.  I would like to congratulate you for what you are doing to elevate the role of the UN and to strengthen the unity of the members of the Security Council on the issue of the crisis in the Persian Gulf.  

M.S. GORBACHEV.  You and I are working for the same cause [delaem obshchee delo].  As for the crisis in the Persian Gulf, probably this issue will have to be discussed again in the Security Council.  We must look at how previous resolutions are being carried out.  Evidently, we will have to come out with a new resolution.  To stipulate in it the most severe measures against Iraq in order to assure its compliance with the resolutions which have been adopted earlier.  However, we consider it extremely important that the new resolution by the Security Council be “two-stepped,” that is, that it represent a combination of two basic elements.  On the one hand, it is stated that the most severe measures will be used if the previous resolutions are not fulfilled.  On the other hand, a definite period is named which would leave open the prospect for a peaceful settlement and would permit S. Hussein to take the correct steps.  Such an approach follows from the two-fold task that we are confronting: not to allow an aggressor to triumph over the world community, but at the same time to avoid war, which would deal a blow to what we are building here in Paris...

[Remainder of the document omitted in the original.]