Washington Report, May 17, 1982, Page 6

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

April 28:

Assistant Secretary of Defense Francis J. West, Jr., leading a U.S. military mission, met with Jordan's King Hussein in Amman. Details were not made public.

April 28:

The U. S. opposed a U. N. General Assembly resolution condemning Israel for seven actions it committed during the last two months. The actions included the dismissal in March of three West Bank mayors and what the resolution said were repressive Israeli policies used to put down Palestinian demonstrations. It passed 86 to 20, with 36 abstentions.

April 29:

President Reagan held talks in Washington with Tunisian Prime Minister Mohammed Mzali, saying afterward: "I have told the Prime Minister that he can count on us as Tunisia faces the external threats that have emerged in the past few years."

May 3:

Reagan Administration officials said that during recent discussions with King Hussein in Amman, U.S. officials offered to sell Jordan newly developed F-5G Tigershark jet fighters and Stinger antiaircraft missiles in the first phase of an arms sale that could eventually include F-16 fighter planes and Hawk mobile missiles.

May 4:

A U.S. State Department spokesman said in response to a question on the May 2 shooting of an Arab girl by an Israeli civilian on the West Bank that "We are deeply concerned by the overall climate of violence which has been allowed to develop on the West Bank and Gaza and by the resort to lethal force to quell disturbances."

May 5:

The House Foreign Affairs Committee approved the Reagan Administration's requested increases for fiscal 1983 in military sales credits and guarantees for Europe and the Middle East.

The new aid totals are $1.7 billion for Israel, $1.3 billion for Egypt, $75 million for Jordan, $40 million for Oman, and $15 million each for Lebanon and North Yemen.

May 6:

The House Subcommittee on Commerce, Consumer and Monetary Affairs, chaired by Representative Benjamin Rosenthal, passed a resolution recommending disclosure of "summaries of substantial portions" of 17 CIA studies on Arab investment in the U.S. The CIA has been refusing to allow publication of the documents without extensive deletions.

May 9:

U.S. State Department official Richard Fairbanks arrived in the Middle East to discuss with senior Israeli and Egyptian officials the revival of the stalled negotiations on Palestinian autonomy.

May 9:

In response to Israeli air strikes into Lebanon and PLO shelling of sites in northern Israel, the U.S. State Department expressed "concern about what is happening" and called on all sides "to exercise restraint and caution."

May 10:

U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig Jr. told reporters, following Israeli and PLO violations of the July cease-fire in southern Lebanon the day before, that the U.S. was "very concerned, as we have been since the cease-fire was put into place, and we continue to be in very close contact with the parties and indirectly we try to ascertain the views and attitudes of the Palestinians."

May 10:

Philip Habib, special U.S. envoy to the Middle East, was asked by Secretary of State Alexander Haig Jr. to come to Washington to discuss recent violations of the Israeli-PLO cease-fire -which Mr. Habib helped put into place-and the possibility of his taking a trip to the region.