How the Kurds were saved from Saddam .sx The creation of a save haven for the Kurds inside Iraq was achieved only after a fortnight of intense manoeuvring .sx The man who displayed the greatest diplomacy on the world stage was the prime minister .sx For , as Nicholas Wood in London and Martin Fletcher in Washington report , it was his skills which turned a scheme fraught with political difficulties into reality .sx THE lowest point in John Major's 15-day personal Odyssey to bring succour to the legions of dispossessed Kurds dying in their thousands of cold and hunger in the mountains of northern Iraq came at Arsenal football club a fortnight ago yesterday .sx The prime minister , a keen Chelsea supporter , could not have been comforted by the sight of their London rivals crushing Aston Villa 5-0 .sx But far more painful for him was the realisation that Margaret Thatcher , his predecessor , had emerged from enforced retirement to champion the cause of the refugees .sx That same afternoon , Mrs Thatcher had stepped onto her Belgravia pavement to tell the world that " legal niceties " could not be allowed to stand in the way of a people's salvation .sx Mr Major , already under fire for his alleged dallying over the poll tax , could have imagined the rest .sx The Kurdish emigr e s duly obliged , letting it be known that they had appreciated the chance to talk to a " doer not a ditherer " .sx By the time he had reached Highbury stadium , Mr Major , from the comfort of his bullet-proof Daimler , had acted to limit the damage .sx After frantic discussions with his aides , including at least three telephone calls during the match , he brought forward the announcement of an outline plan to bring relief to the Kurds .sx Nevertheless , the morning headlines made grim reading .sx " The voice of conscience .sx .. It takes Maggie to speak out for the Kurds " trumpeted the Daily Mail over a story contrasting George Bush's enthusiasm for golf and Mr Major's passion for football with Mrs Thatcher's sense of occasion .sx That Thursday , April 4 , Mr Major cut short his week's break in Huntingdon to return to London to take charge of the biggest political problem to hit his desk since arriving in the hot seat .sx As ever in politics , the criticism was not totally fair .sx According to one senior Foreign Office source yesterday , after witnessing the harrowing scenes on television of the Kurds fleeing from President Saddam Hussein's avenging army , the prime minister had been driving forward an international relief operation on behalf of the Kurds two days before Mrs Thatcher dramatically raised the stakes .sx Tristan Garel-Jones , the Foreign Office duty minister during the Easter recess , had been left in no doubt of the prime minister's intentions by Stephen Wall , his private secretary responsible for foreign affairs , on the Monday before .sx " The message was simple :sx this thing is serious .sx We want action now , " the source said yesterday .sx But for the next two days Whitehall's wheels ground slowly as the Overseas Development Administration wavered over the pounds20 million costs of the Major plan .sx By Wednesday , even before Mrs Thatcher's sensational intervention , things were beginning to take shape .sx On Thursday , April 4 Mr. Major gave details of the pounds20 million mountain airlift , while still ruling out military intervention .sx But the real work was going on behind the scenes on a plan that was to take the European Community and the Americans unawares at special summit of EC leaders in Luxembourg on the following Monday .sx With Douglas Hurd , the foreign secretary , on top of Taishan , China's most sacred mountain , Mr Major took personal charge of what was to be unveiled as the safe havens plan in Luxembourg .sx As one delighted minister put it yesterday , " he saw the greasy ball lying on the grass , scooped it up , rubbed it twice on his shirt , put his head down , and ran for the line .sx It was magic .sx " The prime minister had 'bounced' both the Americans and the Europeans into following Britain's lead .sx The details of the prime minister's " safe haven " plan were not finalised until he reached Luxembourg on the Monday of the EC summit .sx But before he announced them , he secured another diplomatic deal with President Mitterrand of France .sx In the shadow of the summit , the French chaired a meeting of the Western European Union which pledged aid to southeast Turkey .sx The French want the EC to absorb the union and play a military role in Europe , something Britain and the US have resisted .sx By letting M Mitterrand have his way , Mr Major won French backing for his plan .sx On the flight to Luxembourg , Mr Major was warned about the risks of pressing his scheme by close advisers .sx " He was warned that the US was not on board and that the administration wanted to get their troops back home , " one insider said .sx " He was told he would need troops to make the safe havens plan work .sx We all said to him " we cannot guarantee success on this .sx You have to realise there is a possibility of failure and that the Americans and the Europeans might say no .sx " .sx Mr Major , perhaps determined to rid himself of the dithering tag once and for all , was adamant that they should press on .sx Backed by Douglas Hogg , junior minister at the Foreign Office , he told his officials .sx " It's the right thing to do .sx Get on with it .sx " At the prime minister's behest , Mr O'Donnell performed one vital service , translating the mandarin words of the Foreign Office into a four-point plan that could be ready sic !sx assimilated by the media .sx The Americans were told of the plan only after the prime minister arrived in Luxembourg .sx Mr Wall briefed Brent Scowcroft , the national security adviser , and Mr Major sent a message direct to President Bush .sx Sir David Hannay , Britain's ambassador to the UN , set about persuading the Russians and the Chinese that by interfering in Iraq Britain was not seeking to set a precedent for Georgia and Tibet .sx Mr Major's enclave proposal received the chilliest of receptions in Washington .sx Unwilling publicly to snub an ally , Marlin Fitzwater , the White House press secretary , instead damned it with faint praise , saying it had " some merits " and was " worthy of consideration .sx " Privately senior administration officials complained that the British had failed to consult Washington before putting the idea to the EC and listed a string of objections .sx The Americans had already been caught on the hop the day before when Richard Cheney , the US defence secretary , had found himself in the studios of ABC Television when the Turkish president , Turgut Ozal , announced a " buffer state " proposal on air .sx One senior American official told The Times that the idea would never get through the UN Security Council because China and the Soviet Union would argue that it violated the sovereignty of a member state .sx It threatened the permanent fragmentation of Iraq because the enclaves , once established , would be far harder to dismantle .sx It would almost certainly mean US troops re-entering Iraq because " we don't see anyone else volunteering " .sx In the face of British and European determination to forge ahead , the Bush administration was obliged to devise its own counterplan which was first disclosed by an official travelling from Turkey to the Middle East with Mr Baker on Wednesday last week .sx Mr Fitzwater announced that America had told the Iraqis to cease all military activities in the air and on the ground north of parallel 36 so that relief operations could proceed unhindered , thus creating what White House officials privately admitted was a de facto safe haven .sx That night Mr Bush telephoned Mr Major , and after a 20-minute conversation Downing Street and the White House both issued statements saying the two leaders had agreed on the need for a safe haven .sx In a telephone conversation conducted on first name terms , Mr Major told the US leader that aid would not be enough and it was vital to get the Kurds off the mountains .sx Sir David Hannay tackled the problem of convincing the UN to abandon the cherished principle of non-intervention , and by Monday , after talks with Se n-tilde or P e rez de Cu e llar , the UN secretary general , he was making headway .sx Mr Major then spoke to President Bush and Se n-tilde or P e rez de Cu e llar on Tuesday night , firming up an agreement that insiders reckoned was 70 per cent in the bag .sx By the time of the joint Washington and Downing Street announcements about the use of force to secure the havens , the prime minister's days as a ditherer - if not President Bush's - appeared to be numbered .sx Role of West poses dilemma for Rafsanjani .sx From EDWARD GORMAN in TEHRAN .sx THE decision to go ahead with plans for safe areas in northern Iraq has left the Iranian government out in the cold .sx Tehran is coping with the largest number of Kurdish refugees , and according to Western diplomats , seems in a dilemma about how to respond .sx " They haven't made up their minds what they want , " commented one senior Western envoy , who said Tehran has been wrongfooted since the concept of a safe haven or enclave was first mooted .sx " They have a real dilemma , which they haven't resolved , which has important political and humanitarian dimensions , " he added .sx Throughout the Gulf confrontation , President Rafsanjani's approach has combined conflicting impulses .sx Like the United States , Iran does not want to see Iraq break up , and like America , it wants President Saddam Hussein pushed out of power .sx But despite denouncing the invasion and annexation of Kuwait , it has also attacked American and allied military involvement in the region and called for a withdrawal .sx Recently it has blamed America for encouraging the Kurds in their uprising , and for ignoring the plight of refugees on the Iran-Iraq border .sx Tehran has been shut out of the president's plan because it is largely a response to Turkey's needs and because of the continuing deep fracture in American-Iranian relations .sx It can be expected to criticise the proposals because they involve further deployments of allied troops and will fuel fears here that the Americans are not sincere in their undertakings to withdraw from the region .sx The Iranian government is understandably nervous of any solution to the Kurdish problem which helps to formalise Kurdish aspirations to a separate or autonomous state , and the implications that may have for millions of Kurds living on the Iranian side of the border .sx However , President Rafsanjani has made it clear he wishes to see the eventual repatriation of refugees from Iran .sx Some observers believe he may choose publicly to distance himself from the American plan , while allowing or encouraging as many refugees to return home under its auspices as wish to do so .sx This will require careful presentation by the president , who cannot afford to be seen by his people to be participating in , or endorsing , an American-brokered solution .sx Insults pepper Bonn accord .sx From IAN MURRAY IN BONN .sx IT SEEMED a good idea when the German government and opposition agreed last Friday to work together in two committees to rescue eastern Germany from economic collapse .sx Before a single meeting can be arranged , however , both sides are at each other's throat .sx Helmut Kohl , the chancellor , yesterday ruled out any idea that the Social Democrats ( SPD ) would be allowed to discuss government policy .sx Hans-Jochen Vogel , the opposition leader , implied this made little difference since the government was now largely following the interventionist policy of the SPD .sx The tone of the exchanges is growing more vitriolic .sx The chancellor should whistle off the firebrands of his party , said Frau Herta D a ubler-Gmelin , the deputy SPD leader .sx The SPD was falsely raising the expectations of poor people in eastern Germany , countered Volker R u he , general secretary of the chancellor's Christian Democrats ( CDU) .sx Certainly electioneering is involved , since Rhineland-Palatinate , Herr Kohl's home state , votes for a new parliament on Sunday .sx Voters there have always picked a CDU government , but opinion polls show the SPD in the lead , and Herr Kohl's party risks a humiliating defeat .sx Despite the argument , the government has abandoned its reliance on private investment to pull the east out of economic difficulties .sx Treuhand , the agency set up to privatise old communist combines , is now helping lame - duck industries to survive rather than killing them off .sx