The primary stumbling blocks between the foreign ministers of Afghanistan and Pakistan are the timetable for the withdrawal of Soviet troops and the cessation of arms supplies to the mujahideen, although more or less continuous talks have been underway in Geneva since 1982 under the auspices of the UN.

In February 1988, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev announces the withdrawal of USSR troops.

Peace accords between the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan, with the United States and Soviet Union serving as guarantors, are finally signed in April.

The agreement, known as the Geneva accords, includes five major documents.

Among other things, the accords call for US and Soviet non-interference in the internal affairs of Pakistan and Afghanistan, the right of refugees to return to Afghanistan without fear of persecution or harassment, and, most important, a timetable that ensures full Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan by February 15, 1989.

Gorbachev subsequently carries out his earlier promise to begin withdrawing Soviet troops in May of this year; troops begin pulling out as scheduled.

Significantly, the mujahideen are party to neither the negotiations nor to the 1988 agreement.

Consequently, they refuse to accept the terms of the accords.

In May, Afghan guerrillas elect Sibhhatullah Mojadidi as head of their government-in-exile.

On June 7, Najibullah addresses the UN General Assembly concerning the peaceful solution of the crisis in Afghanistan.

Two days later, Najibullah states, according to the Bakhtar News Agency, that 243,900 soldiers and civilians have died in ten years of war in Afghanistan.

In 1987-88, Ahmad Shah Massoud creates the Shura-I qomandanan (commander council).

Younus Qanooni, a very close aide to Massoud since the 1980s, when he was the liaison between the Jamiat-I Islami and the Pakistani ISI, is named spokesperson and chief of the political bureau.

Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi of India visits Islamabad in 1988 to attend a SAARC summit, the first visit of an Indian prime minister since 1960, when Nehru visited to sign the Indus Waters Treaty.

Zia's estimation is that he and Rajiv can meet quite cordially but can not agree on substantive issues.

Junejo's government is unable to accomplish all of Zia's agenda.

Aside from not passing the sharia bill in 1985, it has allowed the resumption of political parties, a step not welcomed by Zia, who sees parties as divisive in what should be a united Islamic community.

Nonetheless, Zia's dismissal of Junejo on May 29, 1988, and the dissolution of the national and provincial assemblies the next day, comes as a surprise.

In explaining his action, Zia points to the failure to carry Islamization forward and to corruption, deterioration of law and order, and mismanagement of the economy.

Another important reason for Junejo's dismissal is his interference in army promotions and his call for an investigation into an arsenal explosion near Islamabad; civilians are not expected to meddle in military affairs.

In June, a caretaker government is set up, with Zia acting as head of government.

He now enacts the sharia bill by ordinance.

Zia procrastinates on calling new elections, which even his own version of the constitution requires within ninety days.

He finally sets November 17, 1988, as the polling date for the National Assembly, with provincial elections three days later.

His reasons for the delay are the holy month of Muharram, which falls in August during the hot weather, and the lack of current electoral registrations (a point he blamed on Junejo).

Despite the open operation of political parties, Zia indicates that elections will again be on a nonparty basis.

Before elections take place, Zia is killed in a mysterious aircraft accident near Bahawalpur, in Punjab, on August 17, 1988, along with the chairman of the joint chiefs committee, the United States ambassador, and twenty-seven others.

A joint United States-Pakistani committee investigating the accident later establishes that the crash was caused by "a criminal act of sabotage perpetrated in the aircraft." Suspicion rests on Soviet agents, but nothing is proved.

Following Zia's death, along with his leading generals, in the mysterious plane crash of August 17, the chairman of the Senate, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, a long-standing Zia supporter, takes over as acting president.

He subsequently announces that elections will be held in November as planned.

Court actions end the nonparty basis for the elections, and parties are permitted to participate.

A technicality-the failure to register as a political party-that would have prohibited the long-suppressed PPP from taking part is also voided.

The National Assembly has 237 seats.

Of these, 217 are filled by direct popular election; 207 are for Muslim candidates and 10 for non-Muslims.

The remaining 20 seats are reserved for women who are chosen by the elected members.

Members of the National Assembly serve five-year terms.

The Senate has 87 members who are chosen by the provincial assemblies for six-year terms.

One-third of the senators relinquish their seats every two years.

When the election results are counted, the PPP, led by Benazir Bhutto, has won 93 seats; the Islamic Democratic Alliance, claiming the mantle of Zia, has won 54 seats; and the remaining 58 seats are won by independents and candidates from minor parties.

Support for Bhutto in the important province of Punjab, with 60 percent of the population, is weak, and in subsequent provincial elections, the Islamic Democratic Alliance holds this important province.

The resurrected Muslim League has become the most important component of the Islamic Democratic Alliance, which takes over Punjab's administration.

PPP candidates become chief ministers of Sindh and the North-West Frontier Province.

Bhutto has a mandate, but it is incomplete.

Ishaq Khan appoints her as prime minister to form a civilian government under the amended 1973 constitution, which provides for a president as head of state and a prime minister as head of government; both must be Muslims.

The National Assembly, the Senate, and the four provincial assemblies elect the president for a term of five years.

The National Assembly elects the prime minister.

The president acts on the advice of the prime minister.

Sworn in as prime minister on December 1, 1988, Benazir Bhutto thus becomes the first elected woman to head a Muslim country.

Ghulam Ishaq Khan is in turn elected to a five-year term as president by the National Assembly and the Senate.

In subsequent negotiations conducted by Ishaq Khan, Bhutto has to make concessions in important areas of policy.

Thus, Pakistan continues its commitment to the Afghan mujahideen, and the army retains its premier place in the system.

(Pakistan's armed forces number over half a million people in the late 1980s; some 480,000 of these are in the army.)

As economic and political conditions deteriorate in Romania, the position of Romania's minorities becomes increasingly precarious.

The regime has sought to weaken community solidarity among the Hungarians of Transylvania by curtailing education and publication in their own language and by promoting the immigration of Romanians into cities with large Hungarian populations.

The Hungarians fear especially an extension to their rural communities of Ceausescu's “village systematization” campaign, which has as its primary objective the destruction of the peasantry as a distinct social class and has already caused the leveling of numerous Romanian villages.

The Saxon and the Jewish communities, on the other hand, have long ceased to be significant political problems for the regime.

Both had suffered heavy losses as a result of the Second World War, and afterward their numbers had steadily declined through emigration—the Saxons to West Germany and the Jews to Israel.