July 1991, Page 51

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

Compiled by Janet McMahon

Apr. 1: Up to three million Kurds were reported to be fleeing into the mountains of northern Iraq in the face of a strong government drive to retake northern Iraqi cities seized by Kurdish rebels after the defeat of Saddam Hussain's forces in Kuwait.

-Leaders of six Kuwaiti opposition groups issued a joint manifesto calling on the emir to set a date for free elections.

-Testimony in a six-month-long Israeli judicial hearing into the October 1990 killing of 18 Palestinians at Jerusalem's Haram Al-Sharif contradicted the official Israeli government version of events, which called a Palestinian assault on Israeli police unprovoked.

-Afghan guerrillas seized the garrison town of Khost in eastern Afghanistan and captured 6,000 government troops.

Apr. 3: The UN Security Council approved a US-supported resolution setting the terms for a formal cease-fire between Iraq and US led coalition forces.

-President Bush said he would continue to use "all diplomatic channels" to assist Kurdish refugees from the failure of anti-government uprisings, while reiterating that "we are not there to intervene ... that is not our purpose. "

Apr. 4: Iraq's official press criticized the UN Security Council's cease-fire resolution, calling it an American plan to control the region and its resources. Meanwhile, the five permanent Security Council members China, France, Great Britain, the US and USSR-agreed for the first time to contribute to a UN observer force to be deployed along the Iraq-Kuwait border if Baghdad accepts the Security Council cease-fire resolution.

Apr. 5: President Bush ordered an airlift of food and other humanitarian aid to Iraqi Kurdish refugees stranded at the Turkish border, and sent Secretary of State Baker to the region to assess the extent of the problem.

Apr. 6: Iraq's National Assembly formally accepted what it called the "unjust" terms of the UN Security Council cease-fire resolution.

Apr. 7: Kuwait's Emir Jaber Al-Ahmed Al Sabah promised to broaden democracy and hold elections and called for the allied coalition to maintain troops in his country as long as Saddam Hussain rules Iraq.

Apr. 9: In Israel, US Secretary of State Baker met with Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, Defense Minister David Levy and other Israeli officials, as well as with a delegation of Palestinian leaders headed by Faisal Husseini.

-International relief agency officials predicted a refugee crisis of major proportions in which thousands of Kurds could die if aid did not reach them soon.

Apr. 10: In Cairo, Egyptian leaders meeting with US Secretary of State Baker expressed interest in an Arab-Israeli peace conference sponsored by the US and the Soviet Union. El Israeli Housing Minister Ariel Sharon said he planned to accelerate Jewish settlement in the occupied territories, calling it "a continuous activity, going on for years."

Apr. 11: President Bush said the US had reached "total agreement" with European leaders on informal safe havens in northern Iraq for Kurdish refugees.

Apr. 15: In a New York Times op-ed article, former Carter administration National Security Council Middle East Adviser Gary Sick renewed speculation that Reagan presidential campaign officials had promised arms to the government of Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in return for Iran's agreement not to release the 52 US Embassy hostages it was holding until after the 1980 elections, which Reagan won by a small margin.

Apr. 16: In the middle of the night, shortly before US Secretary of State Baker's third visit to Israel, an Israeli settlement was erected in the West Bank town of Revava. The White House called the new settlement "an obstacle to peace."

-Reversing previous policy, President Bush announced that US military forces would move into northern Iraq to establish and protect refugee camps for Iraqi Kurds.

- Iraq asked the UN Security Council for permission to sell almost $1 billion worth of oil to pay for emergency imports of food and other humanitarian items.

Apr. 18: In compliance with the UN Security Council's cease-fire resolution, Iraq provided details on its remaining inventory of weapons of mass destruction, saying it has no biological or nuclear weapons but still possesses chemical arms and 52 Scud missiles. Apr. 20: Kuwait's crown prince and prime minister, Saad Abdullah Al-Sabah, named a new cabinet, which opposition groups criticized as insufficiently representative.

Apr. 21: Saudi Arabia confirmed that it would not take part in a proposed Middle East peace conference with Israel.

-Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati urged the US and other Western nations to pressure Israel to release pro-Iranian prisoners, to increase the chances for release of Western hostages being held in Lebanon.

Apr. 23: Iraq asked the UN to assume responsibility for the Kurdish refugee camps in northern Iraq, saying allied-run camps violated Iraq's sovereignty.

Apr. 24: Iraqi President Saddam Hussain and Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, following several days of meetings in Baghdad, announced that they had reached an agreement in principle on greater autonomy for Iraq's Kurdish population.

-Following talks in Damascus between US Secretary of State Baker and Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad, Foreign Minister Farouk Charaa reiterated Syria's insistence on UN and European Community involvement in any peace conference and the right of Palestinians to choose their own representatives, including the PLO, all of which Israel adamantly opposes.

-US troops turned over control of the buffer zone between Iraq and Kuwait to a UN observer force.

Apr. 25: Following a meeting with Secretary of State James Baker, Soviet Foreign Minister Alexander Bessmertnykh said the Soviet Union would cosponsor with the US a proposed Mideast peace conference.

Apr. 26: As Kurdish refugees began moving down from the mountains to a refugee camp near the town of Zakho, President Bush said US troops would stay in northern Iraq only until the refugee operation was complete.

Apr. 28: Israeli Prime Minister Shamir publicly disavowed an earlier agreement between Defense Minister David Levy and US Secretary of State Baker, saying Israel would agree to only a onetime, ceremonial regional meeting leading to direct talks with the Arabs, rather than periodic reconvening.

Apr. 29: The American section of the World Jewish Congress, representing 40 US Jewish groups, called for the commutation of Jonathan Jay Pollard's life sentence for spying for Israel.

Apr. 30: Israeli authorities announced the reopening of Hebron University, one of four major Palestinian universities in the occupied territories closed since January 1988.

May 1: US Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Jack Kemp met with visiting Israeli Housing Minister Ariel Sharon in the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC, after the State Department objected to Kemp's receiving Sharon in his HUD office.

-The State Department was reported to be holding up a visa for former Iranian President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, scheduled to visit the US to promote his book My Turn to Speak: Iran, the Revolution & Secret Deals with the US, in which he speculates about a deal between Reagan campaign officials and the government of Ayatollah Khomeini.

May 2: The Israeli government officially expressed its "protest and regret" over the snubbing of Housing Minister Ariel Sharon on his visit to Washington. In Jerusalem, US Ambassador to Israel William Brown criticized the Israeli government's settlement and immigration policies.

-US and allied forces doubled the size of the Kurdish refugee safe zone in northern Iraq.

May 5: Israeli Ambassador to the US Zalman Shoval said Israel planned to ask the US for an additional $10 billion in housing loan guarantees over a five-year period.

-The Arab League boycott office removed four US companies, including Coca-Cola, from its trade ban and added 110 new firms, two of which were American.

-Officials of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council announced that they "have made extensive contacts with Iranians on including them in the security of the Gulf."

May 6: In a letter to UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, Iraq requested a five year delay on payment of war reparations in order to focus on rebuilding its economy.

May 7: US air patrols over southern Iraq were halted and the last US troops to enter Iraq during the ground war began their final withdrawal into Kuwait. Deputy National Security Adviser Robert M. Gates said the Bush administration would maintain economic sanctions against Iraq as long as Saddam Hussain remains in power.

May 8: Egypt announced that it would withdraw all its forces from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, dealing a blow to plans for an all-Arab security force in the Gulf.

May 9: Iraq rejected a proposal for a UN police force in northern Iraq.

-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's statement that the Soviet Union must renew full diplomatic relations with Israel prior to assuming any role in Mideast peace was rejected by Soviet Foreign Minister Alexander Bessmertnykh, the first Soviet foreign minister to visit Israel since its founding in 1948.

-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said the US had reached general understandings with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states about a long-term US military presence in the Gulf.

May 10: The six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council, including Saudi Arabia, agreed to send an observer to the opening session of an Arab-Israeli peace conference.

May 12: Israeli Prime Minister Shamir's office said the agreement by the GCC states to send observers to a Mideast peace conference "contributes nothing to the peace process."

May 14: After meeting with Jordan's King Hussein in Amman, US Secretary of State Baker drove to the Jordan River, where he crossed the Allenby Bridge on foot, and on to Jerusalem, where he met with Palestinian leaders and had talks with Israeli officials.

May 15: In Jerusalem, US Secretary of State Baker asked Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir to put into writing Israel's points of agreement and disagreement with a proposed peace conference.

-Meeting in Cairo, the 21-member Arab League elected Egyptian Foreign Minister Esmat Abdel-Meguid as its new secretary-general.

May 18: Kurdish rebel leader Massoud Barzani announced that a 20-point agreement in principle for democracy and Kurdish autonomy had been reached with Iraqi authorities.

May 19: A Kuwaiti tribunal convicted five Iraqis and one Jordanian of collaborating with Iraqi occupation forces, sentencing them to prison terms from 3 to 15 years.

-An advance contingent of 10 United Nations security police arrived in the northern Iraqi city of Dahuk to monitor the security of Kurdish residents and refugees.

May 21: Former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in a bomb attack at an election campaign appearance in southern India.

-Ethiopian leader Mengistu Haile Mariam fled to Zimbabwe as rebel forces closed in on the capital city of Addis Ababa.

-Israeli Housing Minister Ariel Sharon vowed to double the Jewish population on the Golan Heights to guarantee that it is never returned to Syria.

May 22: Testifying before a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee, Secretary of State James Baker said, "I don't think that there is any bigger obstacle to peace than [Israeli] settlement activity."

-Presidents Elias Hrawi of Lebanon and Hafez Al-Assad of Syria signed a broad peace treaty calling for close cooperation and coordination between their two countries.

-After weeks of negotiations, US and Iraqi military authorities agreed on a formula to encourage Kurdish refugees to return to the northern Iraqi city of Dahuk.

-As part of the UN requirement that Iraq destroy its weapons of mass destruction, inspectors for the International Atomic Energy Agency completed a five-week inspection of Iraq's supply of enriched uranium.

May 23: President Bush backed his secretary of state's characterization of Israeli settlements as an obstacle to peace, saying Baker "was speaking for this administration and I strongly support what he said."

-The newly elected leader of the Lebanese pro-Iranian faction Hezbollah, Abbas Musawi, announced his willingness to exchange prisoners with Israel.

May 24: The UN Security Council unanimously called on Israel to stop deporting Palestinians from the occupied territories.

May 25: Israel airlifted some 14,000 Ethiopian Jews from Addis Ababa to Israel in a 30-hour operation called "Operation Solomon."

May 27: The acting president of Ethiopia, Lt. Gen. Tesfaye Gibre-Kidan, agreed to cede control of the capital city of Addis Ababa to advancing rebel forces.

-Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Arens called for an international conference on conventional arms limitation in the Middle East.

-Kuwait's Emir Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah extended martial law for 30 days. Meanwhile, after meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo, Kuwait's defense minister, Sheikh Ali Al-Salim AlSabah, said his country "has no intention of granting a permanent base to the United States or to allied troops."

-Following a 3-year boycott of the annual haj, Iranian pilgrims began departing for Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.

May 28: Responding to Iranian President Rafsanjani's call for increased cooperation with the West, Bush administration officials said the US hostages in Lebanon must be freed before the US would take any action.

May 29: Ethiopians in the capital city of Addis Ababa demonstrated against US involvement in urging Tigrayan rebel forces to take control of the city, the majority of whose residents are Amharic. The US Embassy and cars containing foreigners were attacked.

-President Bush announced a Middle East arms control proposal, calling for a freeze on new surface-to-surface missiles, a halt in the production of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, and conventional arms limitation measures.

-India's Congress Party named veteran politician P.V. Narasimha Rao, an ally of the late Rajiv Gandhi, as the party's new provisional president.

May 30: In Tel Aviv, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney announced that the US will give Israel 10 used F- 15 fighter jets and about $210 million for research on Israel's Arrow anti-missile program.

May 31: On the second day of his visit to Israel, Defense Secretary Cheney announced that the US had begun stockpiling military equipment valued at $100 million in Israel for wartime use by either country.