September 1990, Page 39, 40

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

Compiled by Janet McMahon

June 1: Two days after the U.S. vetoed a U.N. resolution to send an observer team to the occupied territories, 50 Palestinian activists in the occupied territories announced they were breaking off contact with the U.S. government and called on Arab states to impose sanctions, including the "oil weapon," on the U.S.

June 3: Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said the USSR may limit Soviet Jewish emigration to Israel if Israel does not guarantee that Soviet emigrants will not be settled in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

-Yair Klein, a lieutenant colonel in the Israeli army reserve photographed by U.S. television crews while training assassination squads for the Medellin drug cartel, and who has since been linked with arms shipments to the same Colombian drug traffickers, was indicted in Israel for exporting military know-how without a permit.

June 4: On the first anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, millions of Iranians gathered at his tomb and heard his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, denounce the U.S. as "the pinnacle of sedition and corruption."

June 6: Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze assured U.S. Secretary of State James Baker that the USSR will not halt Jewish emigration to Israel.

-Israeli military authorities said Palestinian spouses and children of residents of the occupied territories would be allowed to remain in the country permanently, rather than for only three months at a time.

-Iran's President Hashemi Rafsanjani indicated a willingness to discuss proposals by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein for a formal peace treaty between the two nations.

June 7: Following a three-day meeting in Baghdad, the PLO Executive Committee declined to expel or condemn renegade guerrilla leader Abul Abbas for last month's aborted raid on the Israeli coast by Palestinians in small boats.

-The Bush administration announced plans for a $4 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia.

June 10: After meeting with South African leader Nelson Mandela in Geneva, American Jewish leaders said that Jewish organizations should not have "the least hesitation" in welcoming Mandela to the U.S.

June 11: By a vote of 62 to 57, with one abstention, the Israeli Knesset approved a new right-wing government formed by Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.

-Under strong U.S. pressure to condemn a failed sea raid on Israel, the PLO issued a statement opposing "any military action that targets civilians," including "Israeli crimes and massacres against our workers and children." The U.S. expressed "disappointment" with the statement.

June 12: Radical Islamic fundamentalists resoundingly defeated the ruling National Liberation Front (FLN) in Algeria's first free elections since winning independence from France in 1962.

June 13: Testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker criticized Israel's stalling on talks with Palestinians, saying, "When you're serious about peace, call us."

June 15: Israeli Prime Minister Shamir blamed U.S. criticism of Israel for growing Arab hostility toward his country.

-Assistant Secretary of State John Kelly, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, opposed applying economic sanctions against Iraq.

-Iran agreed to pay $600 million to the American oil company Amoco to compensate for installations seized in the 1979 Islamic revolution.

June 17: Dissidents within terrorist Abu Nidal's breakaway Fatah Revolutionary Council were joined by PLO forces loyal to Yasser Arafat in routing Abu Nidal followers from a Palestinian refugee district near Tyre in southern Lebanon. The two days of heavy fighting followed the June 15 assassination of a high-ranking officer in Arafat's mainstream Fatah movement.

June 18: Israeli Prime Minister Shamir invited Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad to enter peace talks with Israel. Shamir also criticized the U.S. for delaying a decision on whether to suspend talks with the PLO.

June 19: Israeli Arab poet Shafik Habib was placed under house arrest on charges that his poems incited attacks against Israel.

June 20: U.S. President George Bush suspended talks with the PLO, citing its unwillingness to condemn and discipline those responsible for a failed assault on the Israeli coast near Tel Aviv.

June 21: A massive earthquake hit northern Iran, killing tens of thousands of people and destroying entire villages in the area of the Caspian Sea.

-Calling the U.S. suspension of their 18-month-old talks "an unfriendly and provocative act," the PLO reiterated its disassociation from the failed sea raid on Israel and directed an investigative committee to look into the May 30 attack.

-African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela, appearing in a televised "town meeting" while visiting the U.S., reaffirmed his support of Yasser Arafat, Muammar Qaddafi and Fidel Castro, saying they "support our struggle to the hilt."

June 23: A Palestinian boat allegedly carrying two gunmen was sunk by an Israeli naval patrol, and the gunmen killed, off the southern Lebanese coast. Earlier, a bomb exploded at a popular Dead Sea resort, injuring four. Police questioned 37 Arabs who had been seized by Israeli bathers.

-U.S. Secretary of State James Baker and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, meeting in Berlin, agreed to increase their efforts toward reaching a compromise settlement to the war in Afghanistan.

June 24: New Israeli Housing Minister Ariel Sharon announced that, as a matter of policy, Soviet Jewish immigrants would not be settled in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

June 25: Iranian ambassador to the United Nations Kamal Kharrazi welcomed U.S. earthquake relief, saying his country would accept aid from all countries except South Africa and Israel.

June 27: Rep. David Obey (D-WI), chairman of the House Foreign Aid Subcommittee, said he will support cuts in U.S. aid to Israel if settlements in the occupied territories are expanded.

-The presidents of the East and West German parliaments, on a visit to Israel, said that Israeli Prime Minister Shamir "gave us an unconditional yes to reunification."

June 28: In a letter to President Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Shamir formally rejected U.S. proposals for talks between Israel and Palestinians including East Jerusalem residents and Arabs expelled from Israel.

July 1: Iranian Interior Minister Abdullah Nouri told a news conference of foreign journalists that his country had no desire for improved relations with the U.S., adding that Iran had done everything possible to release Western hostages held in Lebanon.

July 2: During the annual haj to Mecca, 1,426 pilgrims died in a stampede of worshippers in one of the pedestrian tunnels leading to the holy city.

July 3: The foreign ministers of Iran and Iraq met for the first time since a cease-fire was signed nearly two years ago. The meeting, hosted by U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, took place in Geneva.

-Israel's ambassador to Egypt, Shimon Shamir, resigned his post, citing political differences with Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's new right-wing government.

July 7: U.S. Secretary of State James Baker invited the new Israeli foreign minister, David Levy, to meet with him in Europe July 18 and 19, when Baker will be attending the German unification talks in Paris.

July 8: PLO leaders said they were prepared to "handle Abul Abbas," accused of master-minding a failed sea raid on Israeli beaches in May, if the U.S. agreed to resume and expand its suspended talks with the PLO.

July 9: A no-confidence motion, prompted by Israel's housing crisis and Defense Minister Moshe Arens' decision to establish a Civilian Guard corps composed primarily of settlers, was defeated in the Israeli Knesset by a vote of 60-51, with five abstentions.

July 11: Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Al-Sharaa accused Israel of jeopardizing the anticipated release of one of the Western hostages held in Lebanon with a series of air strikes in southern Lebanon.

July 13: The Wall Street Journal reported that, at a meeting of five Persian Gulf oil ministers hosted by Saudi Arabia, both Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates agreed to limit their production to 1.5 million barrels per day, down from 1.7 million and 2 million barrels per day, respectively.

July 14: Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad arrived in Alexandria, on his first visit to Egypt in 13 years, for three days of talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

July 15: At a meeting of Arab League foreign ministers and delegates in Tunis, PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat rejected U.S. demands that the PLO discipline guerrilla leader Abul Abbas.

July 16: Concluding his meetings with Egyptian President Mubarak, Syria's President Hafez Al-Assad agreed on the need for "a serious initiative for peace" in the Middle East and indicated that he was willing to work toward a settlement.

-Iraq freed British nurse Daphne Parish, sentenced to 15 years in prison for helping British journalist Farzad Bazoft, hanged by the Iraqi government for espionage.

July 17: On the 22nd anniversary of the coup that brought him to power, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein accused two unnamed oil-rich Gulf states (which he later named as Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates) of taking part in a plot "inspired by America" to depress Arab oil revenues by exceeding their OPEC production quotas.

-U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar asked the five permanent Security Council members-Britain, China, France, the U.S. and USSR-to begin exploring ways to advance the Middle East peace process.

-A congressional letter to People's Mojahedin leader Massoud Rajavi, sponsored by Rep. Mervyn Dymally (D-CA) and signed by 162 House members, assailed the Iranian government for the April assassination of Rajavi's brother, Kazem, who, in his capacity as the Mojahedin's representative to the U.N. at Geneva, effectively had discredited a report by U.N. investigator Galindo Pohl dismissing charges of political executions in Iran as "speculation."

July 18: In a letter to the Arab League, Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz accused Kuwait of stealing Iraq's oil, building military installations on Iraqi territory, and cooperating in an "imperialist-Zionist plan" to depress world oil prices.

-The government of India reimposed direct rule in Kashmir.

July 19: The State Department abruptly postponed the annual meeting of the Joint Security Assistance Planning Committee, which coordinates U.S. military aid to Israel, saying the amount of the aid is uncertain because of budget negotiations between the White House and Congress.

July 21: Heavy fighting raged between Shi'i Amal and Hezbollah factions in southern Lebanon, involving an estimated 5,000 troops, killing at least 140 people and causing thousands to flee.

July 22: Israel's Labor Party, by a vote of 54 to 46 percent, defeated a bid by Yitzhak Rabin to replace party leader Shimon Peres.

July 23: Iraq was reported to have moved nearly 30,000 troops to the Kuwait border, less than a week before a scheduled OPEC meeting in Geneva. U.S. warships in the Gulf were placed on alert.

-A European Community delegation of the foreign ministers of Italy, Ireland and Luxembourg visited Jerusalem to encourage the new Israeli government to renew the peace process and enter into talks with Palestinian representatives. The foreign ministers were also scheduled to meet with PLO and Arab League representatives in Tunis.

July 24: The U.S. dispatched two aerial refueling planes to the United Arab Emirates and sent combat ships to sea in a joint exercise, in what was termed a display of support for the UAE and Kuwait. President Bush called for a diplomatic solution to the Gulf dispute.

-Egyptian President Mubarak made surprise visits to Iraq and Kuwait, in an effort to resolve the dispute between the two nations.

-Reversing a June 20th decision, Israel's National Council for Building and Planning voted to proceed with the construction of a Voice of America radio relay station in the Negev Desert.

July 25: Iraq's President Saddam Hussein sent a message to President Bush expressing his desire to end the Gulf crisis quickly and avoid a confrontation with the U.S.

-Israeli tanks and artillery crossed into southern Lebanon and shelled warring Shi'i militia and PLO forces, concentrating on Hezbollah-held villages.

July 26: Israel and Ethiopia reported that the flow of Ethiopian Jews to Israel had returned to normal levels, denying earlier reports that the Ethiopian government had stopped issuing exit visas to Jewish refugees in order to pressure Israel to step up arms supplies to the Mengistu regime.

July 27: OPEC agreed to raise the price of oil from $18 to $21 per barrel, and members pledged not to exceed their production quotas.

-The House and Senate approved amendments to the 1990 farm bill prohibiting Iraq from receiving U.S.-guaranteed loans to purchase American farm products.

July 28: A secret Colombian intelligence report alleged that retired Israeli Lt. Col. Yair Klein's military training school on the Caribbean island of Antigua was paid for and used by the Medellin cocaine cartel.

July 29: Israeli Housing Minister Ariel Sharon's proposal to buy 50,000 mobile homes and 40,000 prefabricated houses to house Soviet immigrants over the next two years was opposed by Finance Minister Yitzhak Modai, who said the government could not afford the $13.5 billion cost.

-The Israeli Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying it was suspending a four-year-old covert program in which reporters were hired by a Jerusalem radio station and given government guidance on what they should report to radio stations around the world, in order to enhance Israel's image overseas.

July 30: It was reported that a buildup of Iraqi troops stationed along the Kuwait border had reached 100,000.

July 31: Representatives of Iraq and Kuwait met in Jiddah to discuss Iraqi charges that Kuwait had pumped oil from disputed territory and was exceeding OPEC oil production quota.

August 2: At 2 am, two Iraqi armored divisions and helicopter-borne troops invaded Kuwait, seizing control of much of the capital by dawn.