Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May/June 1998, Pages 121-122

Facts For Your Files

A Chronology of U.S.-Middle East Relations

Compiled by Janet McMahon

March 1: Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said his country was prepared to comply with 1978’s U.N. Security Council Resolution 425 calling on Israel to “withdraw forthwith its forces from all Lebanese territory,” providing Lebanon would ensure security along its border with northern Israel.

In Kosovo, at least 20 people were killed in weekend clashes between Serbian police and ethnic Albanians.

Iranian President Mohammed Khatami called on Iranians to moderate their demonstrations during this year’s hajj to Mecca.

March 2: The U.N. Security Council unanimously endorsed Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s weapons inspection agreement with Iraq, but rebuffed U.S. and British efforts to include authorization for an automatic military response if Baghdad fails to comply, instead threatening “severest consequences.

”Serbian police used clubs, water cannon and tear gas on some 30,000 ethnic Albanians demonstrating in the Kosovo capital of Pristina in protest of the weekend killing of more than 30 ethnic Albanians by Serbian paramilitaries.

March 3: President Bill Clinton said the U.S. remained “prepared to act” if Iraq obstructed U.N. weapons inspections in any way.More than 30,000 ethnic Albanians evaded Serb roadblocks in Kosovo to attend the funeral of their slain compatriots. Israel’s high court delayed for another 60 days convicted spy Jonathan Jay Pollard’s petition that he be recognized as an Israeli agent in the hope that Israel would then be forced to work harder for his release from a U.S. prison.

March 4: Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu named as the new head of Mossad former deputy director Efraim Helevy, currently ambassador to the European Union and a diplomat with friendly ties to Jordan. Named as new deputy director, and expected to become director in two years, was Maj. Gen. Amiram Levine, commander of Israeli troops occupying southern Lebanon. A three-judge panel of the Israeli Supreme Court made public a November 1997 decision condoning the holding of 21 Lebanese prisoners, some of whom have been held for as long as a decade, as hostages to use as a “bargaining card...for the sake of freeing [Israel’s] missing and captured men.” The report concluded, “In situations like this, damage to basic human rights is obligatory.”

Israeli President Ezer Weizman was elected by the Knesset to a second five-year term, defeating Moroccan-born Shaul Amor, the candidate of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likud Party, by a vote of 63 to 49.

U.N. Secretary-General Annan named as his special political representative to Iraq retired Indian diplomat Prakash Shah.

March 5: Serbian police and paramilitary troops attacked armed Albanian separatists in Kosovo, killing 20 ethnic Albanians and forcing as many as 3,000 women and children to flee their villages outside the provincial capital of Pristina.

March 6: Following a second day of assaults on ethnic Albanian separatists, Serbian police said they had destroyed much of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army and killed a key guerrilla leader, Adem Jashari.

U.N. weapons inspectors, including a team led by American Scott Ritter, resumed arms inspections in Iraq.

Under strong U.S. pressure, Ukraine announced it would abandon plans to provide turbines for a Russian-built nuclear power plant in Iran.

March 7: Secretary of State Madeleine Albright warned that Serbia would pay a price for its actions in Kosovo, although there are no immediate plans for a military response.

U.N. Secretary-General Annan named Sri Lankan diplomat Jayantha Khanapala to oversee weapons inspections at Iraq’s disputed presidential sites.

Russia asked U.N. Secretary-General Annan to name a Russian as co-deputy chairman of the special commission charged with disarming Iraq.

Days before a scheduled meeting between Russian Prime Minister Viktor Cernomyrdin and Vice President Al Gore, Russia’s Atomic Energy Ministry said it planned to sell several additional nuclear reactors to Iran.

March 8: U.N. Secretary-General Annan said that, while an Iraqi breach of the latest weapons inspection agreement would make it easier to launch an air strike on Baghdad, the agreement did not authorize the U.S. to take such action unilaterally.

On the eve of a key meeting of the international “contact group” on the Balkans, Serbian police said they had ended their crackdown on Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian separatists.

With a “difficult” and “harsh” meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose proposals for an immediate freeze on Jewish settlements and a prompt Israeli withdrawal from more of the West Bank he spurned, Prime Minister Netanyahu ended a three-day tour of European capitals to present a new “four-point plan” rejected by Arab leaders.

Israeli Infrastructure Minister Ariel Sharon, the right-wing former general who led Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, met in Amman with Jordan’s King Hussein in an attempt to restore relations soured following Israel’s botched assassination attempt of Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal in the Jordanian capital.

More than 1,500 retired Israeli military and police officers signed a petition urging Prime Minister Netanyahu to “choose the path of peace” and abandon efforts to build a Greater Israel.

Time Magazine reported that the FBI had begun a top-priority investigation into the suspected theft of top-secret documents from the State Department’s executive floor by a man who seemed to know his way around and who took the documents as two secretaries watched.

March 9: With Russia dissenting, the five-nation contact group on the Balkans approved renewed sanctions on Yugoslavia if Belgrade’s campaign against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo continues.

March 10: Marking the formal restoration of ties between Jordan and Israel, Jordan’s Crown Prince Hassan met in Tel Aviv with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Setting off some of the most violent West Bank demonstrations in months, Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint near the village of Tarqumiya south of Hebron shot and killed three Palestinians when they fired into the van in which the Palestinians were returning from jobs in Israel.

The Democratic League of Kosovo, the Yugoslav province’s main Albanian political party, said its goal of autonomy was no longer sufficient and that now only independence from Yugoslavia was acceptable.

March 11: Against a background of congressional criticism and administration ambivalence over his recent weapons inspection agreement with Iraq, U.N. Secretary- General Kofi Annan held a daylong series of meetings in Washington with President Clinton and administration officials, assuring them that he was not trying to undermine U.S. policy on Iraq and that he would not intervene in the Arab-Israeli peace process, and urging that the U.S. pay its $1.2 billion debt to the U.N.

President Clinton’s special envoy to the Balkans Robert Gelbard visited the Kosovo capital of Pristina, where he denounced the Serbian government’s recent use of “brutal, disproportionate and overwhelming force” against Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority, but reiterated U.S. opposition to an independent Albanian state in Kosovo.

 U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ordered the Iranian government to pay $247.5 million in damages to the family of Alisa Flatow, an American student killed in a 1995 Gaza Strip suicide bombing blamed by the Israelis on Islamic Jihad, which the judge ruled was financed by Iran.

March 12: As Israeli soldiers and settlers injured 28 Palestinians in a second day of protests, Prime Minister Netanyahu apologized for the killing of three Palestinians returning from work in Israel, calling it a “tragic mistake.”

March 14: As police in Pristina looked on, some 50,000 ethnic Albanians demonstrated for an independent Republic of Kosovo.

March 15: Rallies were held throughout southern Lebanon to protest 20 years of Israeli occupation.

American arbiter Robert Owen postponed for at least nine months a decision on whether Brcko, a city which had a majority Muslim population before its capture by Bosnian Serb forces, would remain under Bosnian Serb control or be turned over to Muslim-Croat Federation control.

As U.N. envoy Jayantha Dhanapala ended his visit to Baghdad saying he was satisfied that Iraq would cooperate with U.N. weapons inspection teams, Baghdad called on the U.S. to “courageously” change its policies and normalize relations with Iraq.

March 16: The Vatican issued a statement calling the Holocaust an “indelible stain” on the 20th century but defending Pope Pius XII’s efforts on behalf of Jews before and during World War II.

Following British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook’s visit to the Jews-only Har Homa settlement being built in East Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu snubbed the British diplomat by canceling a scheduled dinner. Earlier, during a visit to the Gaza Strip, Cook publicly declared that Israel must halt settlement expansions if peace talks were to progress.

March 18: Israeli police questioned and placed under house arrest Ehud Tenebaum who, along with two fellow 18-year-old hackers, was suspected of infiltrating Pentagon and Israeli computer systems.

March 19: During a private White House meeting, King Hussein of Jordan urged President Clinton to establish a dialogue with Baghdad.

Following the victory of India’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party in national elections, Pakistan said it would review its policy of nuclear restraint in view of the BJP’s nuclear strategy.

March 21: Hezbollah leader Said Hasan Nasrallah said the guerrillas would cease their patrols of the Lebanese-Israeli border if Israel abandons its 20-year-old “security zone” in southern Lebanon.

In the Kosovo capital of Pristina, six Americans, members of the San Francisco-based Peace Workers Group, were sentenced to 10-day jail terms for not reporting their presence to local police.

March 22: Saying that it “expects the United States government to adhere” to earlier assurances that Israel alone would determine the extent of future withdrawals from the West Bank, the Netanyahu government described as “unacceptable” a U.S. proposal that Israel withdraw from an additional 13 percent of the West Bank within three months.

Chief U.N. weapons inspector Richard Butler, overseeing inspections in Baghdad, said Iraq was allowing the inspection of sensitive sites.

Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo voted in an unrecognized “national” election.

In a joint statement, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Mexico said they would cut their crude oil production levels to counter low oil prices worldwide.

March 23: Iraq arrested scientist Nassir Hindawi, regarded as the father of Baghdad’s germ weapons program, as he allegedly was preparing to flee Iraq, where U.N. inspectors had been able to interview him only in the presence of Iraqi police.

Jewish and Roman Catholic leaders met for the first time in Jerusalem to attempt a reconciliation before the millennium.

Serbian and ethnic Albanian leaders signed a compromise agreement allowing ethnic Albanian students to return to university and school buildings closed to them since 1991, when the Albanian-language curriculum was banned.

Six American activists arrested in Pristina were released and expelled into neighboring Macedonia after jail authorities shaved their heads.

March 24: Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu offered to withdraw from less than the 13.1 percent of the West Bank but from areas more contiguous to Palestinian-controlled territory.

As U.S. allies expressed hesitancy in imposing additional sanctions on Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, Serbian police resumed their crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo.

The U.N. withdrew from southern Afghanistan following a local official’s physical attacks on U.N. workers and interference by the Taliban militia.

March 25: U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, visiting Jerusalem, recited “a list of grievances...the international community has against Israel,” including “provocative acts” and “an unwillingness to carry out [Israel’s] side of the bargain.”

Resisting U.S. pressure for stronger measures, foreign ministers of the six-nation “contact group” on Yugoslavia agreed to cut off arms supplies to Belgrade and impose new economic sanctions unless President Milosevic opens talks with ethnic Albanians on greater autonomy for Kosovo.

In televised remarks the previous week, Israeli Infrastructures Minister Ariel Sharon warned that Israel eventually would assassinate Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal, who survived Israel’s first such attempt in Amman six months ago.

March 26: Accompanied by 18 U.N. diplomats, U.N. weapons inspectors began their inspections of Iraq’s presidential compounds.

March 27: Yugoslav President Milosevic refused to see American special envoy Robert Gelbard and rejected a European offer to help end the crisis in Kosovo.

Turkey’s military generals demanded that Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz crack down on spreading religious extremism.

March 29: As U.S. envoy Dennis Ross ended three days of meetings in Israel and Gaza with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Palestinian President Arafat, Secretary of State Albright assured American Jewish leaders that the U.S. would not present Israel with an ultimatum for withdrawing from the West Bank.

March 30: Discussing the latest failed effort to restart the Middle East peace process, State Department spokesman James Rubin said that “one [U.S.] option has always been to disengage.”

Saudi Arabia said it had completed its investigation into the June 1996 Khobar Towers bombing which killed 19 American airmen in Dhahran, but did not release the results.

Algeria rejected a proposal by American Ambassador to the U.N. Bill Richardson that U.N. experts be allowed into the country to conduct an inquiry into the violence that has killed more than 65,000 Algerians.

March 31: Urging the Lebanese government to enter negotiations on security arrangements (for Israel), the Israeli cabinet formally accepted 1978’s U.N. Security Council Resolution 425 calling for a complete Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

The U.N. Security Council imposed an arms embargo on Yugoslavia.

Robert Kocharian, a native of the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave who rejects an interim agreement with Azerbaijan, was elected president of Armenia.