Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May 2000, pages 103-104

Facts For Your Files

A Chronology of U.S.-Middle East Relations

Compiled by Janet McMahon

Feb. 1, 2000: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak flew to Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where three Israeli occupation troops had been killed the previous day, and vowed to punish “those who hit us.”

• Israeli and Arab leaders meeting in Moscow agreed to revive working groups on economic cooperation, water, refugees and the environment.

• Russian troops closing in on Grozny killed three top Chechen rebel commanders, including the capital city’s mayor, as hundreds of guerrillas attempted to flee the city under heavy Russian fire.

• Mauritania arrested four Islamists suspected of having ties with Saudi exile Osama bin Laden and with Mohambedou Ould Slahi, arrested the previous week on charges of plotting bomb attacks against the U.S.

Feb. 2: Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifa Fahima, the Libyan intelligence agents accused of the bombing of PanAm Flight 103, entered pleas of not guilty at a pre-trial hearing in The Hague.

• The PLO Central Council Chairman Salim Zanoun said the policy-making committee would postpone a vote on a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state.

• The Israeli Knesset held its first public debate in more than 35 years on the country’s nuclear weapons program. The result of Arab legislator Issam Makhul’s Supreme Court petition, the debate lasted 52 minutes.

• In the Persian Gulf, a U.S. Navy ship detained a Russian tanker suspected of transporting Iraqi oil in violation of U.N. sanctions.

• Iran released on bail 3 of the 13 Jews arrested on suspicion of spying for Israel.

• A rocket attack on a weekly NATO-escorted bus convoy carrying Serb civilians to their village in northern Kosovo killed two elderly villagers and wounded three others.

Feb. 3: As Israel’s security cabinet approved the delayed transfer to Palestinian control of an additional 6.1 percent of the West Bank, a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Barak and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat at the Erez checkpoint ended without agreement on the scope of the Israeli withdrawal and other key issues.

• Secretary of State Madeleine Albright met in Moscow with acting Russian President Vladimir Putin, who resisted U.S. pressure to ease Russia’s assault on Chechnya.

• Foreign Minister Ismail Cem became the first Turkish official in 40 years to visit Greece.

• Seven ethnic Abanians were killed and at least nine Albanians and 20 Serbs wounded as hundreds of men rampaged through Mitrovica’s minority Serbian district.

• U.S. warplanes bombed an air defense system in Iraq’s northern “no-fly” zone.

Feb. 4: Iran’s opposition Mojahedin Khalq claimed responsibility for mortar attacks on the presidential palace and nearby buildings in Tehran.

Feb. 6: Following the killing of a fifth Israeli soldier in two weeks in occupied southern Lebanon, the Lebanese government put its armed forces on “the highest state of alert.”

• Acting Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that the Chechen capital of Grozny had been captured.

• Defense Secretary William Cohen said tests conducted in Muscat, Oman proved a Russian tanker seized by the U.S. Navy in the Persian Gulf was carrying Iraqi oil.

Feb. 7: Charging the Israelis with negotiating in bad faith, the Palestinian Authority froze peace talks.

• Israeli warplanes bombed southern Lebanon, wounding 18 civilians.

• A Human Rights Watch report said that NATO’s spring 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia killed some 500 civilians in 90 separate incidents.

• Yugoslav Defense Minister Pavle Bulatovic, a close associate of President Slobodan Milosevic, was gunned down in a popular Belgrade restaurant.

• Pakistan test-fired a new, more accurate short-range surface-to-surface missile

• A hijacked Afghan jetliner carrying 165 passengers and crew members landed at Stansted Airport near London.

• Despite strong objections from Moscow, the Russian tanker Volga-Neft-147 prepared to unload its oil cargo in Muscat.

Feb. 8: Israeli warplanes attacked power stations and other targets across Lebanon, wounding 15 people and plunging Beirut and other cities into darkness. Israeli officials said they would not abide by the1996 “April understanding” prohibiting the targeting of civilians, despite the fact that Hezbollah guerrillas had fired no Katyusha rockets into northern Israel.

• An Iraqi military spokesman said U.S. and British warplanes bombed civilian targets in northern Iraq, damaging a farm.

• The first round of talks between Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders ended in Geneva with no breakthrough.

Feb. 9: As Israeli warplanes bombed Lebanon for a third straight night, Foreign Minister David Levy threatened that “the soil of Lebanon will burn” if Hezbollah guerrillas retaliate by attacking northern Israel.

• A 1995 Israeli report which concluded that Shin Bet security interrogators systematically abused Palestinian prisoners was made public following a Supreme Court recommendation.

• Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas fighting for independence from Turkey since 1984 announced they had abandoned their struggle and would work “within the framework of peace and democracy.”

• Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan opened negotiations to mark their common border.

• U.S. and British warplanes killed three people and wounded eight in attacks on southern Iraq.

Feb. 10: As Israel’s warplanes again bombed targets north of its occupation zone in southern Lebanon, Secretary of State Albright announced that the international monitoring group established in 1996 would meet at UNIFIL headquarters in southern Lebanon.

• As U.S. warplanes bombed Iraqi air defense sites near the northern city of Mosul, Baghdad said it would not allow the return of U.N. arms inspectors.

• The hijacking of an Afghan plane ended peacefully after 76 hours as the hijackers released remaining passengers and crew.

Feb. 11: Prime Minister Barak ordered Israeli representatives to the international monitoring committee not to attend its scheduled meeting after Hezbollah guerrillas killed another Israeli soldier in occupied southern Lebanon and Israel retaliated with more air strikes on Lebanon.

• British officials said only 37 of the some 150 passengers hijacked aboard an Afghan airliner wished to return to Afghanistan, with at least 74 claiming political asylum.

Feb. 13: Prime Minister Barak said Israeli troops would not leave southern Lebanon before April.

Feb. 14: Hans von Sponeck, the U.N.’s top humanitarian official in Iraq, said he would resign effective March 31 to protest the effect of U.N. sanctions on the Iraqi people. Von Sponeck succeeded Denis Halliday, who resigned for the same reason.

• Yuli M. Vorontsov, former Russian delegate to the U.N. and the U.S., was named U.N. undersecretary-general with responsibility for the 600 still missing Kuwaiti prisoners and millions of dollars in unaccounted property from Iraq’s 1990 invasion.

• U.N. peacekeeping troops in Kosovo said they had arrested some 40 ethnic Albanians following recent violence in Mitrovica.

• Over U.S. protests, Canada re-established diplomatic ties with Sudan.

Feb. 15: Five weeks before Pope John Paul II’s scheduled visit to the Holy Land, the Vatican and the PLO issued a joint statement warning Israel that any attempt to control Jerusalem is “morally and legally unacceptable.”

• Pakistani Minister Omar Asghar Khan flew to Washington to urge that President Clinton not bypass Pakistan on his upcoming trip to the subcontinent.

• Jutta Purghart, head of the World Food Program in Iraq, became the second U.N. official in as many days to resign over the effects of economic sanctions on Iraq.

• Yugoslav President Milosevic appointed Serbian General and indicted war criminal Draguljub Ojdanic, chief of staff of the Yugoslav army, as his new defense minister.

Feb. 16: Israeli Finance Minister Avraham Shochat said it would cost the army some $250 million to withdraw from Lebanon, an amount within the government’s existing budget, but that Israel would need $17 billion in military aid to finance a withdrawal from the Golan Heights.

• German President Johannes Rau addressed the Israeli Knesset, asking forgiveness for “what the Germans did” during the Holocaust.

• Jordan indicted on 11 counts of terrorism 13 suspects arrested in December for alleged ties to Saudi exile Osama bin Laden.

Feb. 17: Egypt and Jordan demanded that the U.S. pressure Israel to comply with the April 1996 understanding. Meanwhile, in Beirut, security forces used tear gas and clubs against some 2,000 anti-American demonstrators trying to reach the U.S. Embassy.

• The radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine rejoined the PLO Executive Committee, which it had boycotted since the signing of the 1993 Oslo accords.

Feb. 18: Heavy voter turnout in Iranian parliamentary elections resulted in a sweeping victory for moderate candidates, who won 170 of the 290 legislative seats. Hard-line and conservative candidates secured 45 seats and independents 10, with 65 seats to be decided in April run-off elections.

• In a second day of anti-American protests, some 3,000 people demonstrated in front of CNN offices in Beirut.

Feb. 19: Egyptian President Mubarak made an unexpected visit to Beirut in support of Lebanon in the face of recent Israeli attacks.

• Turkish officials detained Mayors Feridun Celik of Diyarbakir, Turkey’s largest Kurdish city, and Selim Ozalp of southeastern Siirt Province, and arrested 23 others on charges of aiding the outlawed PKK.

• A battalion of 350 heavily armed U.S peacekeeping troops was sent to bolster the NATO and U.N. presence in Mitrovica.

• In the first such gesture since Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, Saudi King Fahd invited Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to visit the kingdom.

• U.S. warplanes bombed an Iraqi air defense system near the northern city of Mosul, wounding three civilians.

Feb. 20: Energy Department officials announced the lifting of some security restrictions on Israeli scientists visiting U.S. national laboratories.

• Angry Serbs stoned, punched and kicked American soldiers newly arrived in Mitrovica, causing them to retreat to the southern, ethnic Albanian sector of the divided city.

• Turkish police arrested a third Kurdish mayor, Feyzullah Karaaslan of Bingol.

Feb. 21: Prime Minister Barak said Israel would retaliate harshly for any Hezbollah attack against the Jewish state following its withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

• Thousands of ethnic Albanians attempting to cross into the northern Serb sector of Mitrovica were turned back by NATO-led peacekeeping troops using tear gas and fists.

Feb. 22: Mohammad Reza Khatami, brother of the Iranian president and leader of the victorious reform coalition, said the new parliament would “consider a policy of détente” with the U.S., but that Washington would have to initiate steps toward renewed ties.

• Israeli army chief of operations Gen. Giora Eiland said he expected Israeli troops to withdraw from southern Lebanon by the end of the year, if not by Prime Minister Barak’s July 7 deadline. Meanwhile, the Defense Ministry cut funding for security for the 170,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza from $34.5 million to $6.2 million.

Feb. 23: Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy warned on the floor of the Knesset, “If Kiryat Shimona burns, Lebanese soil will burn.”

• The Clinton administration said that despite the results of Iran’s recent parliamentary elections, it still opposed any World Bank loans to the Tehran government.

• NATO commander Gen. Wesley Clark appealed to member countries for up to 1,800 additional peacekeeping troops in Kosovo.

Feb. 24: Israel’s warplanes attacked alleged guerrilla positions north of its occupation zone in southern Lebanon.

• The Senate unanimously passed legislation allowing sanctions on Russia and other countries selling weapons to Iran.

• Pope John Paul II began a pilgrimage to Egypt, meeting in Cairo with Coptic Christian and Muslim leaders.

• Hours after three detained Kurdish mayors were charged with aiding and abetting the PKK, a Turkish court sentenced 13 members of Hadep, the largest legal pro-Kurdish party, to jail terms of nearly four years for having staged a hunger strike in support of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.

Feb. 25: After a weeklong lull, Israeli warplanes fired rockets on southern Lebanon.

• Some 4,000 Serbs, rallying in the divided city of Mitrovica vowed to defend their northern district against ethnic Albanians.

Feb. 26: While visiting Birzeit University in Ramallah, French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin was jostled and stoned by Palestinian students angry at Jospin’s characterization of Hezbollah resistence to Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon as “terrorist acts.”

• Energy Secretary Bill Richardson issued a joint statement with Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi in which Saudi Arabia promised to “review the oil supply and demand levels.”

Feb. 27: Israeli Prime Minister Barak told his cabinet that assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had guaranteed an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights to Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad.

• After a stormy debate, Egypt’s parliament extended for three more years the state of emergency imposed in 1981 by President Mubarak following the assassination of his predecessor, Anwar Sadat.

Feb. 28: Three detained Kurdish mayors were released on bail from Turkey’s high-security Diyarbakir prison.

• Israeli warplanes bombed suspected guerrilla targets after a series of Hezbollah attacks on Israeli occupation troops in southern Lebanon.

• For the second time in a month, U.S. envoy Dennis Ross returned home after failing to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

• Israel’s State Archives released a transcript of the memoirs of Adolph Eichman, the convicted Nazi war criminal hanged by Israel in 1962.

• Defense attorneys for deposed Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif quit following a court ruling that Sharif’s testimony could only be given in secret.

• Baghdad accused U.S. and British warplanes of having bombed civilians in attacks on sites in northern Iraq’s “no-fly” zone.

Feb. 29: In the wake of a series of political and labor protests in the West Bank and Gaza, the Palestinian Authority declared that all demonstrations and public meetings must by authorized by the police.

• In a landmark civil rights case, Iranian students testified against the former police chief charged with ordering the brutal July 1998 crackdown on Tehran University students.

• Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s special representative in Bosnia, Jacques Klein, said the failure to arrest Bosnian Serb leader and indicted war criminal Radovan Karadzic “shows the impotence of the West in the face of evil.”