UNITED NATIONS -- Iran charged in the U.N. General Assembly Friday the United States had selected Iraqi President Saddam Hussein as its new policeman in the Persian Gulf to replace the fallen shah.
'The Iranian revolution has let the United States lose a loyal gendarme in the area,' Iran's special envoy Dr. Ali Shams Ardakani told the Assembly.
'From the outset,' he said, 'the United States has tried to sabotage this revolution. Now it has opted for another policeman, Saddam Hussein, to replace the shah.'
Ardakani, who had indicated in television interviews that Iran had been sending 'signals' to the United States for improvement of relations which might lead to the release of the 52 American diplomatic hostages, dropped no such hints in the Assembly.
He said the dispatch of U.S. reinforcements to the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf area and its bid for new bases had encouraged Iraq in its aggression.
In another section of his 50-minute speech, he denounced the Iraqi president as 'a tool of Israel, a tool of the super-powers.'
The Assembly, he said, 'should condemn the aggressor. We did not start this war,' he said. 'We are victims of aggression.' 'As long as the aggressor is on our land, the struggle has to go on ... We will not accept any cease-fire or enter into any negotiations until Iraq has retreated from all our territory it has occupied.'
Iraqi delegate Riyadh Al-Qysi said he would not reply to the 'foul language' used against his president.
A number of delegates shook hands with Ardakani after the speech, including Zehdi Labib Terzi, a representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
A few hours earlier, U.N. Secretary General Kurt Waldheim urgently appealed to the presidents of Iraq and Iran for a local cease-fire to allow the resumption of oil tanker traffic in the Shatt-al-Arab waterway.
A U.N. spokesman said Waldheim asked presidents Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Abolhassan Bani-Sadr of Iran to take immediate measures to protect international shipping in the disputed area, which has seen heavy fighting in the past two weeks.
He urged them to make arrangements allowing immobilized ships 'to leave safely,' spokesman Francis Giuliani said. 'It would involve a local cease-fire.'
Waldheim asked the two presidents in a cabled mesage to contact him 'as to the modalities' which would allow the ships to leave, and offered his good offices in making the arrangements. The spokesman said he had asked for an 'early reply.'
Giuliani made the announcement as the U.N. Security Council met behind closed doors for consultations on the Persian Gulf war after Iran reversed its previous position and agreed to appear before the Council.
Iran has rejected a call by the Council to both sides to stop the fighting and negotiate peacefully, stating it would not consider participating in any discussion as long as Iraqi troops remain on its territory.
The Council met for 50 minutes and decided to meet again early next week to hear the delgates of both Iran and Iraq but did not set a firm date. Emerging from the meeting, the delegates said they had unanimously welcomed Waldheim's initiative for protection of international shipping in the Shatt Al-Arab.
Iran's special envoy Ambasador Ali Shams Ardakani was expected to speak for Iran, Foreign Minister Saadoun Hammadi for Iraq. Hammadi told U.N. correspondents he welcomed Iran's decision to come to the Council.
U.S. Ambassador William Vanden Heuvel hailed the Iranian decision as 'a very important step' towards a diplomatic resolution of the increasingly bloody conflict.
'It is essential,' he said, 'that both parties come before the Council because we learned in the situation with our hostages that Iran by not participating in the deliberations of the Council was able to ignore it.'
Iran's acknowledging the Council's importance, Vanden Heuvel said, 'could possibly lead to the eventual release of the hostages.'
Iran's chief delegate, Ambassador Ali Shams Ardakani, was scheduled to address the U.N. General Assembly Friday night as the last speaker in the three-week general policy debate.
Ardakani arrived in New York last week as Bani-Sadr's special envoy, indicating Iran's new interest in using the United Nations to state its case to the world community. He was also considered a possible negotiator in any new initiative to solve the hostage crisis.
