Washington Report, June 13, 1983, Page 6

Facts For Your Files: A Chronology of U.S.-Middle East Relations

May 26:

President Reagan announced that he would nominate Hume Alexander Horan, currently U.S. envoy to Equatorial Guinea, to be the Ambassador to the Sudan. He would replace C. William Kontos, who has been serving in Khartourn since 1980.

May 27:

Responding to the increase in the number of Syrian forces in Lebanon and along the Syrian-Lebanon border, the State Department issued a statement saying: "The Syrian buildup of forces into Lebanon and along the Syrian-Lebanon border can lead only to increased tensions in an already volatile area and could threaten the uneasy peace that now prevails in Lebanon."

May 28:

Amid increased tension in the Bekaa valley in Lebanon between Israel and Syria, a senior State Department official attending the Williamsburg economic summit conference said: "The additional Soviet weaponry, the Soviets manning that weaponry, the aggressive behavior of the Syrians, their association with PLO guerrilla forces, with Iranian terrorist groups that are there, all provide a situation that is dangerous." The official, who could not be named under the rules of the briefing, said that Israel had demonstrated "restraint" in the face of "quite a large Syrian buildup."

May 28:

The Reagan Administration, in a statement read by spokesman Larry Speakes in Williamsburg, called on the Soviet Union and other nations "contributing to the tensions" in Lebanon to exercise "utmost restraint" so that "the risk of conflict can be reduced."

May 28:

Approximately 1,200 U.S. marines from the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit (MAU) arrived in Beirut to exchange positions with marines of the 22nd MAU, who had been serving since last February as part of the multinational peacekeeping force in Lebanon.

June 1:

The State Department issued a statement saying that the U.S. government "is seriously concerned by a recent upsurge of Libyan military activity" in the Aouzou strip in northern Chad, an area which Libyan troops have occupied since 1973. The statement added that although there was "no evidence" that Libya was planning a land invasion of Chad as it did in 1980, it had increased the number of flights in the strip and that "with support elements now in place at Aouzou (Libya) would be capable of launching (air) attacks" against Chad's forces.

June 2:

Nicholas Veliotes, Assistant Secretary for Near East and South Asian Affairs, told the House Subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East that the Administration "will not oppose" Congressional moves to increase the grant portion of aid to Israel above the $1.34 billion requested by President Reagan—providing, he said, that aid to Egypt is also increased, and that this additional money for Israel and Egypt not be taken away from another country's allocation. Another Administration official has told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Administration, to accommodate such increases, would raise the overall total of foreign aid money it had initially requested by some $400 million.

June 2:

By a vote of 276 to 76, the House of Representatives agreed to authorize $251 million in economic and military assistance for Lebanon this year. The Senate—which passed a similar bill May 20—still has to approve the House version, which does not differ on figures but on language specifying the conditions under which President Reagan can commit additional U.S. troops to Lebanon. Appropriation of the money is being handled in separate legislation.

June 2:

Mark Richards, Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the United States, canceled an official meeting in the office of Israel's Attorney General, Yitzhak Zamir, because the office is located in East Jerusalem, according to a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Tel Aviv. The U.S. does not recognize Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem, territory which Israel captured in war in 1967. The two men were to have discussed the possibility of Israel's accepting for trial in Israel several former Nazis and Nazi sympathizers, currently living in the U.S., who have been accused of war crimes against Jews.

June 3:

It was announced at the White House that Geoffrey T.H. Kemp, the senior director of Near East and South Asian Affairs in the National Security Council (NSC), was one of eight NSC staff members to be promoted to the position of special assistant to the President.

June 7:

State Department spokesman Alan Romberg. in commenting on a June 6 statement made in Moscow by the Soviet Anti-Zionist Committee, said: "The contention that the majority of Jews who desire to emigrate from the Soviet Union have already left is patently false."

June 8:

President Reagan met at the White House with Lebanon's Foreign Minister, Elie Salem, who told reporters that while in the U.S. on a private visit he was seeking "to make sure the American interest in Lebanon does not lag." Mr. Salem added that he felt "pretty confident" that Syria would agree to withdraw its forces from Lebanon.