October 24:After three weeks of meetings in Taif, Saudi Arabia, members of the Lebanese
parliament sign an agreement for political reconciliation. The agreement provides for
equal representation of Christians and Muslims in parliament (even though Muslims
are a majority) and allows Syria to continue its military presence in Lebanon.
November 5:The Lebanese parliament elects Rene Muawwad as president under the
terms of the new Taif accord.
November 22:Lebanese prime minister Muawwad is assassinated by a large bomb blast
in Beirut. Elias Hrawi will be selected to replace him.
1990
March 15:After the Labor Party withdraws from the coalition government in Israel,
Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir loses a no-confidence motion in parliament, a first
for an Israeli leader.
May 22:Ending years of conflict followed by negotiations, North and South Yemen
agree to merge into a unified country.
May 25:PLO chairman Yasir Arafat addresses a special meeting of the UN Security
Council in Geneva.
June 20:The United States suspends diplomatic contacts with the PLO, conducted
since December 1988, because of the PLO’s failure to condemn a May 30 attack
against Israelis by the Palestine Liberation Front, led by Abul Abbas.
August 2:Iraq invades and occupies Kuwait. The UN Security Council adopts Reso-
lution 660, condemning the invasion.
August 6:The UN Security Council adopts Resolution 661, imposing economic sanc-
tions against Iraq.
King Fahd of Saudi Arabia agrees to the stationing of U.S. forces in the king-
dom after a meeting in Riyadh during which U.S. secretary of defense Dick
Cheney presents satellite photographs of Iraqi forces massed along the border with
Saudi Arabia.
August 8:Iraq announces that it has annexed Kuwait as its nineteenth province.
August 10:Most countries of the Arab League vote to support Saudi Arabia and other
countries resisting the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait.
August 12:Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein states in a televised speech that Iraq invaded
Kuwait to reverse the ill of “colonialism” when Britain separated Kuwait from Iraq.
He also says that Iraq will withdraw from Kuwait if Israel withdraws from the Pales-
tinian territories and Syria withdraws from Lebanon.
August 25:The UN Security Council adopts Resolution 665, authorizing member
nations to enforce UN sanctions against Iraq.
September 9:In response to Iran’s invasion of Kuwait, President George H. W. Bush
and Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev pledge to take whatever actions are neces-
sary to show “beyond any doubt that aggression cannot and will not pay.”
September 10:Iran and Iraq agree to restore diplomatic relations, which were severed
after the outbreak of their war in 1980.
October 8:In one of the most violent incidents of the Palestinian intifada, Israeli police
use live ammunition to suppress a demonstration in Jerusalem, killing an estimated
twenty Palestinians.
October 12:The UN Security Council adopts Resolution 672, condemning Israel’s use
of violence on October 8 against Palestinian demonstrators in Jerusalem and con-
676 CHRONOLOGY OF THE MIDDLE EAST, 1914–2007