October 1992, Page 52

Facts for Your Files: A Chronology of U.S.-Mideast Relations

Compiled by Janet McMahon

July 1: Assassinated Algerian President Mohammed Boudiaf was buried in Algiers.

President Bush said the White House had no evidence in 1989 that Iraqi President Saddam Hussain was misusing U.S.-guaranteed loans to buy nuclear arms technology.

July 2: Israeli President Chaim Herzog formally asked Labor Party leader Yitzhak Rabin to form a new government.

Ali Kafi, an ex-colonel and member of Algeria's ruling High State Council, was named to replace Mohammed Boudiaf as head of state.

July 3: An exiled Iraqi dissident organization reported a failed coup attempt against Saddam Hussain on June 29.

July 6: The U.N. Security Council demanded that Iraq allow a U.N. inspection team to enter the Agricultural and Irrigation Ministry in Baghdad.

July 8: Algerian Prime Minister Sid Ahmed Ghozali resigned and was replaced by former Industry Minister Belaid Abdeslam, considered the architect of Algerian state industrialization.

July 9: Israeli Labor Party leader Yitzhak Rabin signed coalition agreements with the leftist Meretz bloc and the ultra-religious Shas Party, giving the new government a 62-seat majority in the Knesset.

The House Judiciary Committee called for an independent counsel to investigate allegations that the Bush administration violated federal laws in pursuing its pre-Gulf war policy toward Iraq.

July 12: Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir presided over his final cabinet meeting, saying, "I seriously doubt if any past government in Israel has had such achievements."

July 13: The White House announced that Secretary of State Baker will travel to the Mideast to confer with Arab leaders and new Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

July 14: Speaking at the opening of Israel's newly elected Knesset, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin invited the leaders of Jordan, Syria and Lebanon to Jerusalem for peace talks, and urged Palestinians to enter into negotiations for self-rule in the Israeli-occupied territories.

July 15: In the West Bank city of Nablus, an estimated 1,500 Palestinian students were under siege at An Najah University, as Israeli troops demanded that alleged armed fugitives hiding in the school buildings give themselves up.

The two leaders of Algeria's banned Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), accused of plotting to overthrow the government, were sentenced to 12 years in prison.

July 16: New Israeli Housing Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer announced a temporary halt to contracts for government-subsidized housing, expected to affect 3,000-3,500 units in the occupied territories. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak invited Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to Cairo to discuss the peace process.

July 17: Israeli troops withdrew from An Najah University following a four-day standoff, after six Palestinians accepted a three-year expulsion to Jordan.

In London talks mediated by the European Community, Bosnian Serb, Croat and Muslim leaders agreed to a cease-fire.

July 19: Shortly before the arrival of U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, the Israeli cabinet ordered a review of all previous decisions to build settlements in the occupied territories. After meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Rabin, Secretary of State Baker indicated the U.S. might be more flexible regarding Israel's request for $10 billion in U.S.-guaranteed housing loans, and urged Palestinians also to show a willingness to compromise.

July 20: Following a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, Palestinian spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi said restricted U.S. loan guarantees to Israel would not necessarily drive the Palestinians away from the peace process.

As an EC-mediated cease-fire failed to take effect in Bosnia, U.N. peacekeeping forces closed the Sarajevo airport and suspended deliveries of food and medicine amid the heaviest shelling in a month.

July 21: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo, the first meeting in six years between the Israeli and Egyptian heads of governments.

In a news conference following his meeting with Secretary of State James Baker, Jordan's King Hussein denied his country was violating U.N. sanctions against Iraq. Secretary Baker added that "we are seeing much stronger sanctions enforcement, much less leakage."

A U.N. inspections team left Baghdad, having failed to gain entry to Iraq's Agriculture Ministry and faced with "threatening" behavior from Iraqis.

July 22: General Electric pleaded guilty to charges of fraud, money laundering and corrupt business practices in connection with the diversion of U.S. military funds by Israeli Gen. Rami Dotan, and agreed to pay fines of nearly $70 million.

July 23: Israel's new Labor coalition government canceled plans for 6,500 Jewish housing units in the occupied territories but said it will go ahead with more than 10,000 already being constructed.

Under tight security, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker visited Lebanese President Elias Hrawi in his home village of Zahle in the Bekaa region.

Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said threats of military action would not succeed in forcing Iraq to open the Agriculture Ministry or other "symbols of sovereignty" to U.N. inspectors.

July 26: The director of the U.N. commission inspecting and destroying Iraqi weapons of mass destruction announced that Iraq had agreed to allow a new inspection team to search the Agricultural Ministry building in Baghdad.

July 29: Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford and his law partner Robert Altman were indicted on charges of lying to banking regulators, accepting bribes and falsifying records to help the Bank of Credit and Commerce International illegally acquire U.S. banks, including First American Bankshares Inc. of Washington, DC, of which the two were officers.

U.N. inspectors found no incriminating material in Iraq's Agricultural Ministry.

In Washington, Secretary of State James Baker met with a group of Iraqi dissidents, including Kurdish leaders Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani.

The Vatican and Israel announced the formation of a new joint commission to negotiate full diplomatic relations between the two religious states.

July 30: Arab officials confirmed Saudi and Kuwaiti reports that Iran had decided to expropriate 132 military and civilan Iraqi planes sent to Iran during the Gulf war.

July 31: PLO leader Yasser Arafat, in his first interview with an Israeli newspaper in 10 years, said he would be willing to meet with new Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to discuss peace.

< Prev		Next >