August/September 1991, Page 50

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

Compiled by Janet McMahon

June 1: Secretary of State James Baker, meeting with Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Charaa in Portugal, delivered a letter from President Bush urging Syria to compromise on its demands for UN participation in and reconvening of a Middle East peace conference. The US president had earlier sent a new compromise proposal to the leaders of Egypt, Jordan and Israel.

—The last Kurdish refugee camp in Turkey officially closed.

—Reversing an earlier decision, the Egyptian government agreed to deploy peacekeeping and border patrol troops in Kuwait.

—On his return to Addis Ababa from US sponsored peace talks in London, Ethiopian rebel leader Meles Zenawi emphasized that the US had not given the "go-ahead, " but rather "consented," to the rebel front's decision to enter the Ethiopian capital.

June 2: Angry Kurdish refugees in the town of Zakho attacked Iraqi police officers in demonstrations protesting the withdrawal of US troops from northern Iraq.

—Responding to a proposal by Jordan's King Hussein in an interview in the French magazine Le Point for " face-to-face " contacts with Israeli leaders, Foreign Minister David Levy said Israel was "ready to meet him at any time or any place, with no delay. " Housing Minister Ariel Sharon said, "The King has to be invited to Jerusalem for a cup of coffee to be told that he is not the King of Jordan anymore."

—The emir of Kuwait announced that parliamentary elections would be held in October 1992.

June 4: Israeli planes attacked Palestinian and Lebanese targets east of the port city of Sidon, in the largest attack since Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

—Responding to a Freedom of Information Act request from the National Resources Defense Council, the Defense Department estimated that 100,000 Iraqi soldiers were killed and 300,000 wounded in the Gulf war.

—In an illegal gathering outside a mosque in Kuwait City, an estimated 1,000 Kuwaitis called for faster democratic changes and rejected the government's recent decrees as unconstitutional.

—Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney said the US plans to sell Apache attack helicoptors to the United Arab Emirates and possibly Bahrain.

June 5: Following 12 days of violent demonstrations by Islamists protesting electoral laws and demanding earlier presidential elections, Algerian President Chadli Benjedid cancelled parliamentary elections scheduled for June 27 and declared a state of emergency.

—Following a meeting with senior European Community representatives, Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy agreed to EC participation in future Mideast peace talks.

June 7: In a letter to President Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir rejected the US compromise proposal for a Mideast peace conference.

—Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif asked the US, Soviet Union and China to sponsor nuclear non-proliferation talks between India and Pakistan. India rejected the proposal.

—The White House announced that China had accepted President Bush's invitation to participate with other major arms suppliers in a conference to discuss future weapons sales to Middle East countries.

—In Algiers, Islamists ended a two-week general strike, while the government agreed to hold presidential and parliamentary elections before the end of the year.

June 8: A Kuwaiti martial law court handed down its first death sentence in a series of trials against 17 people accused of collaborating with Iraqi occupation troops.

June 9: Israeli Prime Minister Shamir, in an interview with journalists, added the new condition that Israel must approve the names of any Palestinians named to a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation to a proposed peace conference.

—King Hussein of Jordan and mainstream political leaders signed a national charter legalizing political parties in return for the opposition's acceptance of the constitution and the monarchy.

June 12: UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, responding to Iranian claims that Iraq was preparing to attack Shi'i refugees, said the UN was prepared to establish refugee camps in southern Iraq if necessary.

June 13: Secretary of State James Baker, meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy in Washington, urged Israel to show flexibility toward US peacemaking efforts. D US Defense Secretary Dick Cheney acknowledged that some of Iraq's nuclear arsenal may have escaped destruction by US and allied forces.

June 17: The UN Security Council unanimously approved a resolution maintaining an arms embargo on Iraq and requiring Iraq to pay the cost of eliminating its nuclear materials and chemical and biological weapons.

June 21: Iranian arms dealer Jamshid Hashemi said that he and his late brother, Cyrus, met with the late CIA director William Casey, when he was Reagan campaign director, in Madrid in late July and mid-August 1980, where they arranged a deal to delay the release of US Embassy hostages in Tehran in exchange for $150 million in arms to be delivered by Israel to Iran.

—The withdrawal of US and British troops from northern Iraq was delayed pending an allied agreement for a residual force to deter any renewed Iraqi aggression against the Kurdish minority.

June 25: Kuwaiti Justice Minister Ghazi Obeid Al-Sammar announced the ending of martial law in Kuwait.

June 26: Kuwait's Crown Prince Saad Abdullah AI-Sabah commuted to life imprisonment the sentences of the 29 people sentenced to death under Kuwaiti martial law for collaborating with the Iraqi occupation.

June 27: Tayeb Abdul Rahim, the PLO representative in Amman, said the PLO was willing to participate in peace talks as part of a Jordanian delegation.

—Libya denied French, German, US and British news reports linking it to the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988.

June 28: President Bush said there was " incontrovertible evidence" that Iraq was violating terms of the cease-fire agreement, and left open the possibility of a military response. In Iraq, a UN nuclear inspection team filming a truck convoy believed to be removing concealed nuclear manufacturing equipment came under fire by Iraqi soldiers.

—The leader of Algeria's Islamic Salvation Front threatened a holy war unless the army lifted its three-week state of siege.

June 29: Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq rejected an autonomy plan offered by the Iraqi government retaining Baghdad's control of the entire (oil-producing) city of Kirkuk, reiterating the supremacy of the Ba'ath Party, and demanding Kurdish denunciation of foreign intervention in northern Iraq.

June 30: The leader of Algeria's Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), Abassi Madani, and his deputy, Ali Belhadj, were arrested on charges of conspiracy against state security.