April 1989, Page 36

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

February 1: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir renewed his offer of "full autonomy" for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza during an interim period leading to final talks, but refused to say whether this autonomy would end in permanent Israeli rule of the occupied territories.

• An Israeli military court sentenced six Palestinians to up to two years in prison for throwing stones during the intifadah. Though no one was injured in the stone-throwing incidents, an army spokesman said the unusually harsh sentences were meant to deter other youths from throwing stones.
  
  
• Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati said Iran and Pakistan will continue urging Afghan rebel leaders to agree on an interim government in Afghanistan prior to the final Soviet withdrawal of its forces on Feb. 15.

February 2: The Wall Street Journal reported that the Bush administration is considering selling Saudi Arabia and Kuwait more than 500 advanced M- I Abrams tanks, and 40 F-18 fighters to the United Arab Emirates. Also included in the list of possible sales are 150 Hawk anti-aircraft missiles for Egypt and 200 shoulder-held Stinger missiles and several helicopters for Israel.

• Iranian officials announced that Iran intends to borrow $3 billion from foreign banks and governments over the next five years for development projects. The announcement, if implemented, would be a major change in the policies of Ayatollah Khomeini, who has banned such loans since the overthrow of the shah 10 years ago.

February 3: West German officials reported that on Jan. 20 customs police in Bremerhaven seized a Libya-bound shipment of 255 tons of a chemical that could be used to manufacture explosives.

February 5: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, in a nationally televised speech to members of his right-wing Likud party, called Palestinians "alien invaders" and vowed "There will be no Palestinian state here. Never."

• Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg, Pakistan's army chief, in a speech at the National Defense College at Rawalpindi revealed that Pakistan had successfully tested two locally manufactured surface-to-surface missiles, with ranges of 48 miles and 180 miles respectively.

February 6: Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Arens, in a Jerusalem speech to leaders of American Jewish organizations, criticized the US and other Western nations for continuing their dialogue with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat following an attempted raid into Israel from southern Lebanon the previous day in which five guerrillas were killed by Israeli forces.

February 7: Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati arrived unexpectedly in London and held a 90-minute meeting with British Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe signalling an improvement in relations between the two countries. The visit, the first by an Iranian foreign minister since the Iranian revolution 10 years ago, renewed hopes for release of hostages held in Lebanon.

• The United Nations began airlifting food and medicine to the beleaguered Afghan capital of Kabul, where a small contingent of Soviet troops was still protecting the airport.

February 8: Iran announced that in honor of the Islamic revolution's 10th anniversary it would release several thousand political prisoners including members of the Communist Party, the People's Mujaheddin, and other groups opposed to the government of Ayatollah Khomeini.

• The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) criticized a B'nai B'rith International fund-raising letter that claimed that Arabs on college campuses were "poisoning the minds of our young." B'nai B'rith said the letter had been mailed by mistake and the president, Seymour Reich, who signed the letter, had privately apologized to ADC. The ADC has asked the IRS and the Postal Service to investigate B'nai B'rith's tax-exempt status.
  
  
• The Afghan News Agency, the news organization for the Pakistani-based rebel alliance, announced that the guerrillas plan to close the country's airports to force the surrender of cities, claiming that international aid only sustains the regime of President Najibullah.

February 9: Mohammed Zahir Shah, the 74-year-old exiled king of Afghanistan, said he is willing to help the Afghan rebel parties form a new government and work for the unification of his country. Zahir, who has been in exile for 16 years, took power when he was only 19 and ruled for 40 years before being deposed by the army July 17, 1973.

February 10: In Israel the results of two public opinion polls indicate that About two-thirds of Israeli Jews would return some occupied land in exchange for peace, and more than half would be willing to support conditional negotiations with the PLO.

• Vice President Dan Quayle, in his first major policy speech outside Washington, told the Executive Committee of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith that while "the status quo on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is clearly unacceptable" the US was "going to rely on Israel for the guidance of how we should proceed" in the Middle East.
  
  
• After meeting for less than an hour, the 526-member Afghan resistance council "postponed indefinitely" its work, dashing hopes the shaky rebel alliance might be able to agree on an interim government. The shura reportedly broke down over the question of representation for the Iran-based Shi'ite rebels in proportion to the Sunni Muslim groups based in Pakistan.
  
  
• President George Bush reportedly decided to continue supplying military aid to Afghan rebels as long as President Najibullah remains in power, according to administration officials.

February 11: Secretary of State James Baker said the US would not break off its two-month-old dialogue with the PLO despite Israeli appeals to do so, but warned the PLO that recent guerrilla activities by some of its factions "present us with great difficulty."

• Kuwait confirmed that it had released from prison two of the 17 terrorists convicted in the 1983 bombing of the American and French embassies and other targets in Kuwait. The freedom of the 17 has been sought by pro-Iranian extremist groups in Lebanon believed responsible for the kidnapping of nine Americans.

February 12: Hundreds of Muslims attacked the US Information Service office in Islamabad, Pakistan, during a violent demonstration demanding the US ban Salman Rushdie's controversial novel, The Satanic Verses. At least five people were shot and killed and 127 injured when police opened fire on the crowd. None of the 18 people inside the building, including three Americans, was injured.

• The Wall Street Journal reported that US intelligence officials believe the Libyan chemical plant at Rabta could be capable of "large-scale production" of chemical weapons, and that with a minimum of foreign help, Libyans could begin operating the plant.
  
  
• A prominent Afghan rebel commander said guerrilla groups are drawing up a "security plan" to keep order in Afghanistan if the government of President Najibullah falls and no interim rebel government is able to take its place.

February 14: Rep. Wayne Owens (D-UT) said PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat is preparing a report for the US government on the PLO's investigation into the Dec. 21 bombing of a Pan Am jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland.

• The Soviet trade union newspaper Trud reported that some Afghan army units had already abandoned positions handed over to them by departing Soviet troops seeking to comply with the Feb. 15 withdrawal deadline.

February 15: Rival Christian forces fought with tanks and heavy artillery for 17 hours for control of the Christian areas of Lebanon in one of the most serious power struggles among Christians during the 14-year-old Lebanese civil war. The battle, in which at least 40 people were killed and 90 wounded, pitted the Christian forces of the Lebanese army led by Gen. Michel Aoun against Lebanese Forces militiamen led by Dr. Samir Geagea.

• The West German government acknowledged that it had received reports since 1980 about Libyan attempts to manufacture poison gas and possible West German participation in the project.
  
  
• Hasan Saneu, an aide to Ayatollah Khomeini, said in Tehran that his charity, the June Fifth Foundation, would pay anyone who kills Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie $1 million, and would pay any Iranian who completes what he termed a "holy crusade" $3 million. Khomeini declared on Feb. 14 that Muslims should kill Rushdie because his book blasphemes Islam.
  
  
• The Soviet Union formally ended its nearly 10-year-old military intervention in Afghanistan by removing the last of its troops from the war-torn country. More than 1 million Afghan civilians and 15,000 Soviet soldiers were killed during the war, and 5 million others, a third of the prewar population, became refugees in Iran and Pakistan.
  
  
• Pakistan-based Afghan rebel leaders announced the formation of a 28-minister provincial government, with Ahmed Shah, a US -trained engineer, as its prime minister.

February 16: Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen announced the formation of the Arab Cooperation Council, an economic union designed to foster common markets and economic integration.

• US Secretary of State James Baker told West European leaders that it is still too early to push for a dialogue between Israel and her Arab neighbors, though he promised to continue an active dialogue with the PLO, Israelis, and other Arab states.

February 17: Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze began an 11-day, five-nation tour of the Middle East, the first major Soviet diplomatic move in the area in more than a decade. Shevardnadze's itinerary includes stops in Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, and Iran, and his trip represents the first time a Soviet foreign minister ever has visited Jordan.

• The US vetoed a UN Security Council resolution deploring Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories, saying the resolution did "not take into sufficient account the context in which they occur or the excesses of the other side. "The Council's other 14 members voted in favor of the action.
  
  
• US administration officials said Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had sent a personal letter to President Bush seeking US help in achieving a peaceful settlement to the Afghan conflict. The letter, which came shortly after Bush renewed his pledge to continue supplying the Afghan resistance with arms, was dismissed by White House officials as nothing new.

February 18: Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze said in Damascus his government will press the UN Security Council to convene an international peace conference as a means to settle the Arab-Israeli dispute.

• Afghan rebel leaders nominated politically moderate Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi as acting president, and Ahmed Shah, a fundamentalist, as acting prime minister during a special Consultative Council (or shura) meeting in Islamabad, Pakistan. The assembly was expected to approve the nominations.

February 20: A Washington Post-ABC News poll revealed that 52 percent of those interviewed had an unfavorable impression of Israel. Nearly equal numbers of respondents had favorable impressions of Israel (44 percent), the principal recipient of US aid, and the Soviet Union (45 percent), America's principal global rival.

• Afghan Prime Minister Mohammad Hassan Sharq resigned from the government of President Najibullah, a move underscoring the failure thus far by Afghans to establish a government of national reconciliation.
  
  
• European Community members agreed to recall their top diplomatic personnel from Iran in response to the death threat by Ayatollah Khomeini against the life of British author Salman Rushdie, and suspend all high-level visits until Iran renounces the threatened use of violence.

February 21: Iran recalled its top diplomats from the capitals of European Community members after the EC censured the government of Ayatollah Khomeini for calling for the assassination of Salman Rushdie.

February 22: PLO Deputy Chairman Salah Khalaf, in a videotaped speech to a Jerusalem symposium on Middle East peace, called for immediate and direct negotiations between the PLO and the Israeli government to bring about a two-state solution to their conflict. The videotape was smuggled into Israel. Khalaf spoke in Arabic to demonstrate that PLO leaders are saying the same things in both Arabic and English.

• The Soviet Union and Israel agreed to more frequent high-level diplomatic meetings following a Cairo meeting between Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze and Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Arens.
  
  
• Newspapers in Khartoum, Sudan, reported that the Sudanese commander in chief and 150 other military officers have given Prime Minister Sadiq alMadhi one week to reform his government and work to end the civil war.

February 23: In an unprecedented move, PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat met with 15 Israeli journalists in Cairo and said though he fears the possibility of assassination, he would like to meet with Israeli leaders face to face.

• Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and King Hussein of Jordan urged President Bush in Tokyo to support the idea of an international peace conference. The leaders were in Japan for the funeral of Emperor Hirohito. Bush also met with Israeli President Chaim Herzog, who pressed Bush not to endorse such a meeting at this time.

February 24: The Algerian government announced that Algerian voters had overwhelmingly voted in favor of a new constitution which establishes "the right to create associations of a political character," paving the way for a multiparty system for the first time since Algerian independence in 1962.

• Afghan rebel leaders, ending their two-week shura in Islamabad, proclaimed the birth of a "free Muslim state," vowed to be operating in Afghanistan within one month, and called on the United Nations and "all nations of the free world" to recognize their government in exile. US State Department spokesman Charles Redman said the exile government does not meet the usual criteria for recognition and diplomatic relations, including: control over territory, a functioning civil administration, broad popular support, and an ability to honor international obligations.

February 25: Senior Bush administration officials said the US would continue using Pakistani intelligence services to supply the Afghan rebel movement rather than supplying the rebel government-in-exile, which it does not recognize, directly.

February 26: The 35th leaflet of the Palestinian uprising's underground leadership called on Israeli citizens to press their government to open direct talks with the Palestine Liberation Organization.

• Egypt and Israel settled a seven-year-old dispute over the seaside resort of Taba, bringing an end to one of their most intractable problems and returning the area to Egyptian control.
  
  
• Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini called for stronger relations between Iran and the Soviet Union to counter the "devilish" West following a one and a half hour meeting with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze in Tehran.

February 28: Arab officials said that Syrian President Hafez Al Assad has informed Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze that he is willing to enter joint discussions with other Arab leaders on preparations for an international Middle East peace conference and end his isolation in the Arab world.