January 1990, Page 28

Facts for Your Files: A Chronology of US-Mideast Relations

Compiled by Janet McMahon

Nov. 1: Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto survived a parliamentary no confidence motion, with the opposition falling 12 votes short of the needed total.

The Iranian parliament adopted a law authorizing the arrest and trial of Americans charged with acting against Iranian interests anywhere in the world. It was a response to a previous US Justice Department ruling authorizing the FBI to arrest and try suspected terrorists without the permission of the countries where they were seized.

The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the killing of Mohammad Ali Marzouki, 70, the only remaining Saudi Embassy official in Lebanon.

Nov. 4: Lebanese Maronite General Michel Aoun declared the Lebanese parliament dissolved in an effort to prevent the election of a new president and ratification of an Arab League-endorsed peace plan proposed by Lebanese deputies in Taif, Saudi Arabia.

Former Interior Minister Ali Akbar Mohtashemi, one of Iran's most militant Islamic revolutionaries, called for a mass demonstration to mark the 10th anniversary of the seizure of the American Embassy. Turnout was estimated at 10,000 to 15,000, in contrast to the hundreds of thousands who participated in previous rallies.

Nov. 5: The Israeli Inner Cabinet formally approved US Secretary of State Baker's fivepoint peace plan, with the "assumptions" that the US will assure that participation in peace talks is limited to non-PLO residents of the occupied territories, that Palestinian participants will be approved by Israel, and that the talks will be limited to the Israeli election plan for the territories.

The Lebanese Parliament met in a remote village in the north of the country to ratify the Arab-sponsored peace plan and elect Rene Moawad, a Maronite Christian, as the country's new president.

Nov. 6: PLO officials, following executive committee meetings in Cairo, reserved the right to decide on the composition of the Palestinian delegation to peace talks with Israel.

Nov. 7: The US vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution calling on Israel to "lift its siege " of the occupied territories. The Security Council's 14 other members voted in favor of the resolution.

Two Israeli soldiers participating in joint military operations with the US were killed, and two others wounded, in an artillery explosion at the Army Proving Ground in Yuma, Arizona.

Nov. 8: Jordan held its first election in 22 years, with an estimated 61 percent of the country's voters participating. Muslim Brotherhood candidates and their fundamentalist allies won at least 32 of the 80 parliamentary seats.

US Secretary of State James Baker, while praising Israel's acceptance of Palestinian elections in the occupied territories in principle, rejected the conditions attached to that acceptance.

Nov. 9: At its annual meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, the US Catholic Conference of Bishops unanimously adopted a resolution calling for an independent Palestinian homeland within the context of Israel's right to secure borders.

Nov. 13: Selim al-Hoss, a Sunni Muslim and US-educated economist who has been serving as prime minister of Lebanon, was named to the same post by newly-elected President Rene Moawad.

Nov. 15: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir described his White House meetings with President Bush, Secretary of State Baker and Defense Secretary Cheney as harmonious, because "the discussions were not conducted in a way that we had to take decisions today." Shamir told reporters that he had not been given the assurances Israel requested as part of its acceptance of Baker's five-point peace plan.

Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip celebrated the first anniversary of the declaration of the state of Palestine, while Israeli forces imposed a curfew on more than a million residents of the occupied territories.

Nov. 17: Following a two-month absence from Lebanon, US Ambassador John McCarthy presented his credentials to President Rene Moawad at the latter's ancestral home in the mountains of northern Lebanon. McCarthy than departed Lebanon for consultations in Washington.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz proposed the establishment of a joint committee with Iran to try to negotiate a final peace settlement to the Iran-Iraq war.

Nov. 22: Lebanese President Rene Moawad was assassinated after 17 days in office. There was no claim of responsibility for the killing of Moawad along with fourteen others, including 10 of his bodyguards and four Syrian soldiers, by a bomb detonated by remote control as the President's motorcade returned from an observance of Lebanese Independence Day.

Nov. 23: Israeli planes attacked two bases of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, General Command located in the Syrian-controlled Bekaa Valley.

Nov. 24: The Lebanese Parliament elected Maronite Christian deputy and businessman Elias Hrawi to succeed Rene Moawad as president. Hrawi, whose candidacy was supported by Syria, retained Selim al-Hoss as prime minister.

Nov. 25: As assassinated Lebanese President Rene Moawad was buried, his successor Elias Hrawi declared the cabinet of Christian General Michel Aoun dissolved and named a new government. Businesses in Muslim and Christian areas of the country closed in a nationwide day of mourning.

Nov. 27: The US warned that it would stop funding its share of UN headquarters operations in New York if the General Assembly raises the status of the PLO from "non-state observer" to a proposed "State of Palestine. "

Syrian tanks moved to within two miles of Christian General Michel Aoun's stronghold in the Lebanese Presidential Palace in Baabda, as the standoff between the rebellious general and the newly elected government of Lebanon took on military overtones.

Nov. 28: PLO officials and Arab diplomats based in Paris reported that Abu Nidal, leader of the terrorist Fatah Revolutionary Council, which broke away from the PLO in 1973, has been placed under house arrest in Libya.

Nov. 29: At the request of the PLO, Arab foreign ministers met in Tunis to reaffirm their countries' commitment to the PLO as a central player in Middle East diplomacy. The PLO reportedly has been under pressure from the US and Egypt to accept Secretary of State Baker's peace plan, including the determination by Egypt, Israel and the US of a Palestinian delegation.

Nov. 30: At the United Nations, a group of Arab states formally introduced a resolution calling on the General Assembly to recognize the PLO as the representative of a Palestinian state.