{"id":15673,"date":"2009-10-22T13:32:34","date_gmt":"2009-10-22T11:32:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=15673"},"modified":"2014-01-05T17:32:40","modified_gmt":"2014-01-05T15:32:40","slug":"israel-met-iran-at-atomic-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2009\/10\/22\/israel-met-iran-at-atomic-talks\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel ‘met Iran’ at atomic talks"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Israel is believed to be nuclear armed, though it does not confirm it<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Senior Israeli and Iranian officials have met face-to-face and discussed the threat of nuclear arms, Israel says.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Israeli officials told the BBC each side attended panel sessions of a disarmament and non-proliferation conference in Cairo in September.<\/p>\n

Iran had denied the Israeli accounts, but if confirmed it would be the first official exchange between the bitter foes since Iran’s 1979 revolution.<\/p>\n

Israel is believed to have nuclear arms and accuses Iran of seeking them too.<\/p>\n

Representing Israel at the closed-door event at the Four Seasons hotel in the Egyptian capital was the head of arms control at the Israeli Atomic Agency, Meirav Zafary-Odiz, Israeli media reported.<\/p>\n

Iran’s ambassador to the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, was also reportedly at the conference.<\/p>\n

Reacting to the reports, Iran’s atomic energy organisation spokesmen denied any meetings had taken place with Israeli officials.<\/p>\n

“This lie is a kind of psychological operation designed to affect the constant success of Iran’s dynamic diplomacy in the Geneva and Vienna meetings,” said Ali Shirzadian in quotes broadcast on Iranian state TV.<\/p>\n

A senior Israeli government official, meanwhile, described it as “preposterous” that the Cairo panel sessions implied any kind of diplomatic contact between Iran and Israel.<\/p>\n

“For years Iran and Israel have participated at the same time in multilateral forums like this,” he said, giving the examples of UN agencies, and the IAEA.<\/p>\n

Contacts avoided<\/strong><\/p>\n

Iran does not recognise Israel and the two sides are frequently involved in exchanging hostile threats and denunciations.<\/p>\n

At international conferences and sporting events, representatives of the Islamic Republic invariably avoid any contact with their Israeli counterparts.<\/p>\n

Israel’s Haaretz newspaper says three panel sessions of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament conference involved exchanges between the Iranian and Israeli delegates.<\/p>\n

The sessions dealt with efforts to make the Middle East a nuclear-free zone, non-proliferation in the region and developing peaceful nuclear energy.<\/p>\n

In one of the discussions, Haaretz quotes Mr Soltanieh directly asking Ms Zafary-Odiz: “Do you or do you not have nuclear weapons?”<\/p>\n

Ms Zafary-Odiz reportedly smiled, but did not respond.<\/p>\n

The newspaper says the two representatives did not meet separately outside the session or shake hands.<\/p>\n

Israel is widely believed to have a stockpile of atomic warheads with delivery systems, but it refuses to confirm or deny their existence and has not signed the international Nuclear Non-Profileration Treaty.<\/p>\n

The US leads accusations that Iran is engaged in a covert attempt to develop nuclear weapons, although Iran says its nuclear activities are purely for peaceful ends.<\/p>\n

Source: \u00a0news.bbc.co.uk<\/span>, 22 October 2009<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senior Israeli and Iranian officials have met face-to-face and discussed the threat of nuclear arms, Israel says. Israeli officials told the BBC each side attended panel sessions of a disarmament and non-proliferation conference in Cairo in September. Iran had denied the Israeli accounts, but if confirmed it would be the first official exchange between the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":15674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,148],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-iran_","category-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}