PEREZ RUNS AGROUND

Even before he left New York, there was very little optimism that the peace mission to Tehran and Baghdad by Javier Perez de Cuellar, the United Nations Secretary-General, would have much success and the first reports on his visits confirms the gloomy prognosis. In Tehran, the Secretary-General's first port of call, the Iranian leadership insisted that any acceptance of the ceasefire call was conditional on the public condemnation by the Security Council of Iraq for starting the Gulf war.