April 1990, Page 29

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

Compiled by Janet McMahon

Feb. 1: The Jerusalem Post, under new ownership and management, cancelled publication of Essays on Human Rights, the sixth volume in a seven-book series on "West Bank and Gaza."

Feb. 2: Representatives of Soviet Armenia and Azerbaijan met in the Latvian capital of Riga for talks on humanitarian issues, but not the territorial dispute between the two republics, to be mediated by leaders of the Baltic nationalist movements.

Feb. 4: An Israeli tour bus was attacked by armed assailants 30 miles east of Cairo, killing nine and wounding 17, a week before US Secretary of State James Baker's arrival in the region to discuss the Middle East peace process.

Feb. 5: The Israeli Likud Party postponed a crucial central committee meeting in the wake of the attack on an Israeli tour bus in Egypt. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir had planned to seek a vote of confidence for his plan for elections in the occupied territories. Indian security forces fired on Pakistani protesters who crossed the border dividing Kashmir at Arifpur, killing two and injuring twelve.

Feb. 7: Senate Appropriations CommitteeChairman Robert Byrd (D-W. Va.), discussing Republican Senator Robert Dole's proposal for a five percent across-the-board cut to the five largest recipients of US foreign aid—Israel, Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey and the Philippines—argued that each country should be looked at on its merits and might warrant cuts of "somewhere between 10 and 20 percent."

Feb. 8: Senate Minority Leader Robert Dole (R-KS) and seven other legislators sent a letter to Secretary of State James Baker, in Moscow for talks with Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze, stating that any softening of the US position on Afghanistan towards "the endorsement of any so-called 'transitional' government which includes [Afghan President] Najibullah" would be unacceptable.

Feb. 9: Iran's spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenie, apparently angered by the expulsion of nine Iranians from Britain, renewed the call for the death of Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses, whom he charged with blasphemy.

February 12: Former Defense Minister Ariel Sharon resigned from the Israeli cabinet, where he was minister of trade and industry, following a stormy confrontation with Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir at a chaotic meeting of the Likud party.

Feb. 14: The head of Colombia's intelligence police named retired Israeli Col. Yair Klein, accused of training drug traffickers' paramilitary squads, as having trained the men who placed a bomb on Avianca flight 727, which exploded on Nov. 27, killing all 107 aboard.

Feb. 15: The Soviet Union rejected a US request for direct flights from Moscow to Tel Aviv for thousands of emigrating Soviet Jews. The Soviet action was in response to Arab concerns that Soviet immigrants to Israel would be settled in the West Bank.

The US government announced plans to speed up construction of a radio transmitter in the Negev Desert, despite concerns of Israeli environmentalists who oppose its construction. The transmitter is intended to improve Voice of America, Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe broadcasts to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

Iran and the Soviet Union signed two protocols facilitating cross-border visits between the two countries, each with large Azerbaijani populations.

Feb. 16: Lebanese Christian Gen. Michel Aoun captured East Beirut strongholds in Ain al Rummaneh of the Christian Lebanese Forces loyal to Samir Geagea in heavy inter-Christian fighting.

Clashes erupted between Muslims and ethnic Armenians in the Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan, where leaflets appeared demanding the immediate eviction of Russians from Central Asia and denouncing the reported immigration of ethnic Armenian refugees from Azerbaijan.

Feb. 17: Jordan's King Hussein criticized what he characterized as a US shift away from its historic policy of calling for Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories, citing US abstention on a UN resolution calling on Israel not to settle Soviet immigrants in the "Palestinian and Arab" territories captured in 1967.

Feb. 20: The United Nations protested an "unprovoked" attack on UN peace-keeping forces in southern Lebanon by the Israeli armed South Lebanon Army. Two Nepali soldiers were killed and six wounded.

Feb. 21: The US State Department's annual report on human rights criticized Israel for "avoidable deaths and injuries" of Palestinians in the occupied territories and also reported increasing violence among Palestinians. Iraq's human rights record was described as "abysmal."

French President Francois Mitterand announced the sale of a nuclear power plant to Pakistan, ending a 14-year embargo adopted partly as a result of US concerns over Pakistan's nuclear capability.

Feb. 22: The Israeli Labor Party adopted a resolution giving Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir two weeks to agree to accept the US proposal for Israeli-Palestinian talks. A US-flagged Kuwaiti tanker carrying naphtha and diesel fuel exploded in the Persian Gulf, killing two Americans.

Feb. 23: US Secretary of State James Baker told Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Arens that Israel's reluctance to pursue its own plan for elections in the occupied territories was an obstacle to peace in the region and indicated that, if Israel showed no movement in the coming week, Baker "would probably pull back."

In an apparent acceptance of a more behind-the-scenes role in proposed Palestinian-Israeli peace talks, PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat endorsed an active role in such talks for representatives from the occupied territories and East Jerusalem.

Shi'i Hezbollah spiritual leader Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah called for the release of the 18 Western hostages held in Lebanon. His statement came one day after the Tehran Times, an Iranian English-language daily believed to be close to President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, said the captives had become a propaganda tool of Iran's enemies and should be freed.

Feb. 24: A Lebanese ferry en route from Cyprus to the port of Jounieh, held by Lebanese forces of Samir Geagea, was fired on off the Lebanese coast by artillery controlled by Gen. Michel Aoun, killing one passenger and wounding at least fifteen.

Feb. 27: The Israeli army extended for at least three more months orders closing Palestinian universities in the occupied territories. Two days earlier, authorities announced that 14 community colleges, also closed since 1987, would be reopened in stages.

Poland resumed full diplomatic relations with Israel, following the lead of Hungary and Czechoslovakia. At least 350,000 Israelis, including Prime Ministers David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Shamir, were born in Poland.