Europeans Seek Haven for Kurds : Refugees: Britain’s plan to create a shelter zone in northern Iraq wins EC endorsement.

LUXEMBOURG —  The leaders of the 12-nation European Community agreed Monday to support a British proposal calling for the United Nations to create a “safe haven” in northern Iraq to protect the Kurdish population from the Iraqi army.

British Prime Minister John Major offered his surprise proposal at an EC summit meeting without consulting President Bush, but he said he thought Washington would approve it.

The plan, urging quick action to safeguard the lives of Kurdish refugees, is expected to be presented to the U.N. Security Council soon.

In other developments:

* Iraqi rebel leaders and Kurdish refugees reported that Iraqi helicopter gunships fired on columns of fleeing refugees as U.S., British and French aircraft were dropping emergency food supplies into the mountain passes of Iraq.

* At the United Nations, Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar noted that Iraq has unconditionally accepted the Security Council’s demands for peace and recommended that the council officially ratify the cease-fire.

In outlining his proposal--for which he offered few details--Major noted that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has offered amnesty to all Kurds who have fled Iraq or are trying to leave, if they lay down their arms. But Major added, “We must hold Saddam Hussein to his offer of an amnesty (for the Kurds).

“Saddam Hussein’s record is so abhorrent that I can envisage no relaxation of sanctions as long as he remains in power. If Saddam Hussein continues to violate (the U.N. Security Council resolution on Iraq’s treatment of Kurds) . . . we should return to the Security Council to enforce that resolution,” he added.

Basically, the Major plan envisages U.N. civilian or military personnel creating a zone in northern Iraq as a shelter for hundreds of thousands of Kurdish refugees who have fled their homes as the Iraqi army advanced to put down an uprising against Baghdad.

Major’s aides said such an enclave could contain the main Kurdish cities in northern Iraq, presumably including the oil-producing city of Kirkuk, as well as Irbil and most mountain towns.

Major said that U.N. protection could also be offered to Shiite Muslims in southern Iraq, whose own insurrection has been brutally put down by the Iraqi military. But Major, echoing President Bush’s policy, declared, “We cannot intervene militarily in Iraq to secure the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.”

French President Francois Mitterrand supported Major’s proposal. German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, whose government was criticized for its lukewarm support of the allied effort in the Persian Gulf War, enthusiastically backed it.

Later, Luxembourg Prime Minister Jacques Santer, the summit host, said that all 12 EC members were in favor of setting up a “protective area” for the Kurds in Iraq. But he said the details should be left to the Security Council, if and when it passes such a resolution.

The European leaders also voted to provide a total of $180 million in emergency relief for the Kurdish refugees.

So far, the United States and Britain have provided the bulk of an air relief fleet to drop food, supplies and tents to the Kurds.

Mohammed Saleh Marouf, an engineer from the northern Iraqi city of Irbil who was among the Kurdish refugees, was quoted on Tehran Radio as saying that in one case, Iraqi helicopters fired at refugees along Iran’s border as an American aircraft flew nearby. The U.S. plane did not react, he said.

“Helicopters of the Iraqi regime are shelling northern roads that are packed with tens of thousands of refugees fleeing toward the Iranian and Turkish borders,” said a spokesman for the Iraqi Shiite opposition group of the Ayatollah Mohammed Taki Mudarresi in Damascus, Syria.

A spokesman for the Damascus-based Kurdish Democratic Party said: “A new massacre was carried out today by Saddam Hussein’s forces.

“Iraqi helicopter gunships and heavy artillery guns have been pounding since early morning all roads leading to the Turkish and Iranian borders,” the spokesman said. “They are also shelling mountains and hills where displaced families are huddling.”

Iraqi officials, meanwhile, denounced the international airlift dropping supplies to the Kurds as a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty.

In a letter to Perez de Cuellar, Iraqi Foreign Minister Ahmed Hussein Khudayer said the air relief operation “proves the evil intentions harbored by the U.S. and Britain toward Iraq.”

According to Col. Don Kirchoffner, a spokesman for the U.S. air relief effort at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, Air Force C-130 aircraft parachuted more than 25 tons of military field rations in the border area between Iraq and Turkey on Sunday and Monday.

In Tehran, officials said 771,850 refugees had entered Iran by Monday afternoon. That figure is expected to rise to 1 million by the end of the week, Vahid Dastjeridi, head of the Iranian Red Crescent Society, told Tehran Radio.

Tuohy reported from Luxembourg and Tempest from Nicosia, Cyprus.