Gorbachev’s final Kuwait peace bid in late-night meeting

One final attempt to strike a deal to avert the American-led ground offensive against Iraq over Kuwait was negotiated in Moscow.

In the days before the ground assault in February 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev, the then Soviet president, held a late-night meeting with Tariq Aziz, then Iraq’s foreign minister.

The Soviet transcript of the conversation is among secret documents that reveal how France helped the Soviet Union to stop America toppling Saddam Hussein as Iraq’s president in the first Gulf War.

Gorbachev is recorded as telling Aziz: “On the American side, it is now a matter of hours, not even days. I can report that, according to reliable intelligence from three sources, the ground offensive should have started already. It was only our appeal that delayed it.”