Israel has rejected accusations by a UN expert panel that it may be involved in the illegal export and sale of so-called ‘blood diamonds’ from the Ivory Coast. Israel's Diamond Controller Shmuel Mordechai said he was shocked the “false accusations" in the report to the UN Security Council on international compliance with UN sanctions imposed on the Ivory Coast. Along with Israel, the panel also named the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Guinea and Liberia as some of the countries that needed to step up efforts to enforce a four-year-old UN embargo on buying rough diamonds mined in the West African country.
"Israel has never dealt in diamond trade with the Ivory Coast," Mordechai said in a statement. "We are shocked by these false accusations and completely refute them." The Security Council is expected to renew for another year embargoes on arms and rough diamond sales and other sanctions on the Ivory Coast, which is still recovering from a civil war. The report recommends that Jerusalem "investigate fully the possible involvement of Israeli nationals and companies in the illegal export of Ivorian rough diamonds."
Mordechai said the UN experts had visited Israel twice in recent years and were provided with "unequivocal proof" that it had never dealt in rough diamonds from the Ivory Coast or any other countries that are not members of the Kimberley Process.