The World - News from Sept. 4, 1988

Iraq’s foreign minister said that the 10-day-old Persian Gulf peace talks remain stalled and blamed Iran for the deadlock. The two sides have not had face-to-face talks since Aug. 26, and Iraq’s representative, Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz, expressed little optimism after meeting with U.N. mediator Jan Eliasson in Geneva. “We are still at Square 1,” Aziz told reporters. “We have not gone beyond that square because the other side, the Iranian side, has not yet shown any substantive sign that . . . they realize their commitments vis-a-vis the cease-fire.” Aziz said those commitments had to do with freedom of navigation and the contested Shatt al Arab waterway, Iraq’s only outlet to the gulf. Iran insists that it has the right to stop vessels in the gulf and that it share control of the waterway.