BICOM

Israeli ministers categorically denied that Israel had spied on US-Iran nuclear negotiations, following a report in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said, “No Israeli organisation spies on the Americans and there has been no complaint made by the US about espionage. It appears that someone wants to cause a quarrel between us and the US.” Both Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz joined in publicly rejecting the charges, while an official in the Israeli Prime Minister’s office said they were “completely wrong”.

House leader and Republican Senator John Boehner also said he was “baffled” by the reports, which accused Israel of relaying information to US legislators in an effort to undermine the administration’s position.

The Wall Street Journal article, quoting a “senior US official”, claimed Israel acquired information from confidential briefings, diplomatic contacts in Europe and eavesdropping, and that the US found out through its own intelligence agencies who were spying on communications between Israeli officials.

Israel, along with a number of Arab states, has deep concerns about the deal under negotiation. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the case in a speech to Congress on at the beginning of March that it was an inadequate deal that did not do enough to distance Iran from the capacity for nuclear weapons. However, Israel maintains that it has not conducted espionage against its US ally since the infamous case of Jonathan Pollard, a US intelligence analyst caught spying for Israel in 1985.

Nuclear negotiations are set to resume in Lausanne today, with a 31 March deadline to reach an outline agreement, and the extended interim agreement currently in place set to expire on 24 June.