Iraq has accepted President Bush's offer to hold talks on the Persian Gulf crisis, the State Department said today. ``We are engaged with them on dates and arrangements for the two meetings,'' the department said. Bush had proposed that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein send his foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, to Washington. Then, Bush said in making the offer last Friday, Secretary of State James A. Baker III would go to Baghdad. In Buenos Aires, Argentina, today, Bush said any talks would be mandated by U.N. Security Council resolutions that have been adopted since the crisis began. ``That means no concession of territory. That means freedom of innocent people that are held against their will. ... And that means the eventual security and stability of the gulf, although that's not specified by the resolution,'' Bush said. His comments came before the State Department announced that Iraq had accepted the offer to hold talks. Earlier today, Baker told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he would not negotiate with Saddam on the trip and added a new warning: ``If force must be used, it will be used suddenly, massively and decisively.'' He said his meeting in Baghdad ``will not be the beginning of a negotation over the terms of the United Nations resolutions.'' Nor, Baker said, would he negotiate on subjects ``unrelated'' to the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. ``I will not be negotiating the Palestinian question or the civil war in Lebanon,'' he said. ``Saddam did not invade Kuwait to help the Palestinians. He did it for his own self-aggrandizement.'' Saddam had said earlier that the Palestinian problem must be on the agenda in any dialogue with Baker. Joe Wilson, the deputy ambassador in Iraq, was called in by the Iraqi foreign minister to be told of Iraq's acceptance of the offer, the announcement said. Wilson and a number of other U.S. officials remain in the U.S. Embassy in Baghadad. Bush made last week's unexpected overture at a presidential news conference in Washington. It followed mounting complaints in Congress that the administration was rushing into war with Iraq over its invasion of Kuwait without giving diplmacy enough time for the pursuit of a peaceful settlement. Even so, Bush pledged the administration would not waver from the resolution approved last Thursday by the U.N. Security Council threatening a forceful eviction of Iraqi troops if they did not withdraw by Jan. 15. Sen. Paul Simon, D-Ill., urged Baker at today's hearing to provide Saddam Hussein with ``a way out'' of the crisis. He suggested one approach would be to propose the World Court resolve Iraq's territorial claims against Kuwait. ``If at all possible, make that a meaningful trip,'' Simon urged. Baker stressed that the U.N. resolution did not require the United States to attack Jan. 15 or a day after. Without elaboration, Baker said diplomatic steps were being taken in the search for a peaceful solution. However, Baker insisted that Iraq must withdraw from all of Kuwait, liberate all foreign hostages and permit the restoration of the ousted government. Bush, in making the offer to swap envoys, said Baker would not waver from the three demands. ``The best way to get that across is one-on-one, Baker looking him in the eye,'' Bush said.
