7 December 2006
Iran has categorically denied a report that it was holding secret talks with Israel over the settlement of a debt. The report was "unfounded and totally false," Iran's mission to the United Nations in Geneva said in a statement to AP. The statement accused the Israeli newspaper "Haaretz", which had published the report, of "quoting fictitious sources" to divert attention away from alleged atrocities committed by Israel's government. "Haaretz" had reported on Wednesday that Iran was still owed hundreds of millions of dollars for oil it supplied to Israel in the years before the Islamic revolution in 1979, and representatives of the two countries, now sworn enemies, were holding contacts meant to settle the debt. Israel and Iran had a close relationship in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, when Iran was ruled by the pro-Western Shah. Israeli companies were given large construction contracts in Iran, the countries cooperated on security and weapons development, and, according to the report, a joint Israeli-Iranian company, "Trans Asiatic Oil Ltd.," supplied Iranian oil to Israel. In 1979, when Shiite clerics took power, Iran cut off all contacts with Israel, leaving an Iranian debt to Israeli companies for services rendered and a much larger Israeli debt to Iranian oil suppliers, according to the report. The report cited two mediation processes involving different parts of the debt as ongoing between Iranian and Israeli representatives. It said a third ended recently in a ruling that Israeli fuel companies owe Iran tens of millions of dollars. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly denied that Israel has the right to exist and has called for its destruction.
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