CAIRO: Iranian and Israeli officials traded barbs during nuclear talks in Cairo, an Egyptian official who attended the first high-level contact between the two arch-foes in 30 years told AFP on Thursday.
Former Israeli Foreign Minister Schlomo Ben Ami and Merav Zafary-Odiz of Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) attended the Middle East Regional Meeting of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament in Cairo between Sept. 28 and 30.
Iran was represented by Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, its envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Egyptian official said.
“During the first session Ben Ami and Soltanieh spoke,” he said. “We had round-table discussions... then there were cross-table discussions. It was rather polemical, with accusations.
“Soltanieh said the Iranians do not have a (nuclear) bomb and do not want the bomb but the Israelis said that was not true,” the official said, adding that he did not know if the Israelis and Iranians had also met bilaterally on the sidelines.
Iran’s atomic energy organization, however, denied on Thursday that Iranian and Israeli experts held secret talks on regional nuclear issues, state television’s website reported.
“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,” the organization’s spokesman, Ali Shirzadian, was quoted as saying.
A spokeswoman for Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission said on Thursday that commission representatives had held several meetings with an Iranian official to discuss nuclear issues in the region.
