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Ever since the adoption of Security Council Resolution 242 in November 1967 - the first serious attempt since 1948 to establish a framework for the settlement of the Arab Israeli conflict - all peace initiatives have been punctuated by long ritual pauses to take account of elections in the United States and in Israel. It has become conventional wisdom that it is no use expecting American or Israeli Administrations to respond to international pressures or themselves to adopt enlightened policies while they are wrestling with their recalcitrant domestic constituencies, be it in the apparently interminable preliminaries to American presidential or mid-term elections or in general elections in Israel.

Kuwait is poised to sign a weapons supply agreement with the Soviet Union, but, according to Defence Minister Shaikh Salem al Sabah, rumours of a military accord between the two are untrue. "We will sign an agreement on our arms purchase from the Soviet Union as is the case between any arms selling country and a buyer", Shaikh Salem said. However, this agreement will have "no military or political significance", the Minister added.

The Iraqi government-organised international conference, held this week in Baghdad, is entitled 'The Impact of the Iran-Iraq War on World Peace and Security'. Speaking at its opening, the Iraqi Foreign Minister, Tariq Aziz, reiterated the Iraqi contention that the international community at large continues to ignore - or at least cares little about - the nearly four year old war.

The defence chiefs of the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries gathered together in Riyadh last week to hammer out a common operational defence for the region. They met during a slight fall in the intensity of the military crisis in the Gulf - a short-lived lull in the Gulf tanker war and with reports- that the promised Iranian land offensive was stalled by a dispute among the leadership in Tehran.

The agreement by the belligerents in the Iran-Iraq war to cease air and artillery bombardments of civilian towns, responding to an appeal by the United Nations, is the first time in the 45 month old conflict that both combatants have ever heeded any of the many appeals to them to modify the savage fighting between them. The agreement, if it holds, brings to a close a recent period in which hundreds of civilians on both sides have been killed and injured in cross border shelling and bombing raids. The strikes began earlier this month with an Iraqi air raid on the Iranian border town of Baneh, in which, claimed the Iranians, more than three hundred people were killed and three hundred wounded. Iran retaliated by shelling Basra and five other Iraqi border towns.

Significant military developments, paralleling the intensive diplomatic moves surrounding the Gulf crisis, confirm that the balance between regional peace and war remains as precarious as ever. Both Iraq and Iran insist - and have so demonstrated that their attacks on shipping will continue. With different degrees of emphasis, the six member countries of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) have more or less committed themselves to a military response to Iranian attacks on their ships or installations.

The joint visit to Japan by Kuwait Foreign Minister Shaikh Sabah al Ahmad and Iraq Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, which begins this week, is ostensibly to brief the Japanese government on the Arab Foreign Ministers' meeting -in-Baghdad in March which called on industrial countries to refrain' from measures likely to prolong the Gulf conflict.

Taha Yasin Ramadan's recently concluded trip to the Soviet Union has further cemented the rehabilitated relations between Iraq and the Soviet Union. The First Deputy Prime Minister, before his departure from Baghdad, had said his visit was to improve and expand bilateral relations between the two countries.

The Reagan Administration has denied that it fears an Iraqi 'collapse' in the Gulf war, and has said that both Iran and Iraq are in a position to continue - fighting 'indefinitely'. However, the US State Department said there was a 'continuing' danger" that the three and a half year old conflict could spread, endangering the security of nearby Gulf states.

The United Nations' condemnation of the use of chemical weapons in the Iran Iraq war called on both Iraq and Iran to abide by the Geneva Convention banning chemical warfare, but the Security Council's action was directed, really, towards Iraq alone. The condemnation follows the UN investigation in Iran, which clearly stated that chemical weapons had been used.

SHAIKH SALEM AL SABAH, Kuwait's Minister of Defence, has said that "efforts and contacts" are presently taking place to end the Iran-Iraq war. In an interview with 'AI Taawon', the Minister said he hoped these efforts will yield positive results shortly, to stop "the haemorrhage that is draining Arab blood and economy".

THE UNITED NATIONS' SECRETARY GENERAL has informed the governments of Iran and Iraq that he is "ready to despatch a mission to the area as soon as assurances for the safety of the mission are received". The mission will have a two-fold purpose: Firstly to update a previous UN mission which reported on war damage to civilian areas and, secondly, to ascertain" The authoritative positions of the two governments on the issues related to the conflict".

THE OPENING OF THE TRIAL of the accused in last December's bombings in Kuwait turns an unwelcome page in the country's short independent history. From independence in 1961, Kuwait enjoyed an enviable internal tranquillity, marked by a comparatively liberal regime, under which most Kuwaitis devoted much of their time to the making of money (or, if a Suq al Manakh punter, to losing it). From the safe security of the 'Little Fortress,' Kuwaitis pursued an active and individual foreign policy, enemy to almost none, and friend to nearly all.

DOMINATED BY THE ISSUE OF EGYPT'S RE-ADMISSION to the Islamic Conference Organisation (ICO), the 4th Islamic Summit at Casablanca was notable more for the heated controversies it engendered than the harmony it was supposed to promote.

THE RECALL OF THE JORDANIAN PARLIAMENT, in suspense since 1974 when the Rabat Arab summit designated the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) as the sole representative of the Palestinians, re-introduced a fresh and important element into the current jigsaw of Middle East politics.