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But by this time Bush had given Iraq an ultimatum, demanding the withdrawal of the Iraqi forces from Kuwait within a week and from Kuwait City within 48 hours. Moreover, this withdrawal was to begin at noon New York time on Saturday, Feb. 23.
We received a positive reply from Saddam at 2 a.m. Moscow time, on Saturday, Feb. 23 (6 p.m. Friday in New York and Washington). Ten hours later, Aziz announced in Moscow that the Iraqi leadership had agreed to the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all its armed forces from Kuwait. But at the same time, he referred to the entire "complex" of issues, including the need to pronounce invalid all the resolutions that had been adopted by the Security Council after Resolution 660. Then he left the Soviet Union for Baghdad.
Gorbachev immediately dispatched telegrams to the leaders of all the countries on the Security Council. He telephoned Bush again and called the leaders of the multinational coalition and Iran. Gorbachev said the Iraqi decision to withdraw unconditionally from Kuwait had created a new situation. He suggested convening the Security Council to integrate into one package the U.S. demands and the plan adopted by Iraq.
In Gorbachev's view the differences between the formula to which Iraq had agreed and the proposals from a number of other countries were not so great that they could not be worked out in the Security Council in one or two days. Certainly these differences were not so substantial that they justified a further escalation of the war. The Soviet U.N. representative was instructed to request an emergency session of the Security Council. However, as dawn broke on Feb. 24, the ground offensive of the multinational coalition began.