Resolution
By 1991 radical Shia operatives imprisoned in Europe had been freed. Islamic Dawa party members convicted of terrorism in Kuwait had been freed by Iraqi Invasion. There was no need to pressure Western supporters of the Iraq because Iran-Iraq War was over. It was pretty well established that the four missing Iranians were no longer alive.
More importantly Iran was in need of foreign investment "to repair its economy and infrastructure after the destruction of the Iran-Iraq War, and Syria needed to "consolidation of its hegemony over Lebanon" and obtain to Western aid to compensate for the loss of Soviet support following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Syria was actively pressuring Hezbollah to stop the abductions and a February 1987 attack by Syrian troops in Beirut that killed 23 members of Hezbollah was in part an expression of Syrian irritation with the continued hostage-taking. Hezbollah had guarantees from Syria that despite the end of the Lebanese Civil War, it would be allowed to remain armed, while all other Lebanese militias would be disarmed, on the grounds that Hezbollah needed its weapons to fight Israeli occupation in the South.
This combination of factors created a setting whereby UN Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar and his personal envoy, Giandomenico Picco (served on the Board of Governmental Relations for the American Iranian Council), could negotiate "a comprehensive resolution to the hostage-crisis." Hezbollah by December 1991, Hezbollah had released the last hostage in return for Israel's release of imprisoned Shi'ites.
Read more about this topic: Lebanon Hostage Crisis
Famous quotes containing the word resolution:
“We often see malefactors, when they are led to execution, put on resolution and a contempt of death which, in truth, is nothing else but fearing to look it in the face—so that this pretended bravery may very truly be said to do the same good office to their mind that the blindfold does to their eyes.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“I had crossed de line of which I had so long been dreaming. I was free; but dere was no one to welcome me to de land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land, and my home after all was down in de old cabin quarter, wid de ole folks, and my brudders and sisters. But to dis solemn resolution I came; I was free, and dey should be free also; I would make a home for dem in de North, and de Lord helping me, I would bring dem all dere.”
—Harriet Tubman (c. 1820–1913)
“A resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)