The story that Israeli and Iranian officials sahred, not only the same conference but rather, the same room and pannel in Cairo is still making headlines.
I pushed several Iranian commentators on the story, however they all denied the very possibility that such an event could have taken place.
In a previous post I provided some track record of the Israeli Iranian communications.
John Lyons, The Australian Middle East correspondent is latest to report on the story.
NUCLEAR negotiators from around the world must have known they were about to witness something extraordinary when they walked through the foyer of the Four Seasons Hotel in Cairo on September 29. They all knew bitter enemies were about to sit at the same table for the first time in years.
The representatives of Israel and Iran arrived for the meeting brokered by former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans. It was a meeting of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, a group established by the Rudd government.
For the next two days, an Israeli woman and an Iranian man sat at the same table. At no time did they shake hands - while other delegates greeted each other at the beginning and end of the meeting and during coffee breaks, the Israeli and the Iranian kept their distance.
However, the significance was that both governments allowed their representatives to attend the meeting knowing the other would be there.
Israel's Merav Zafary-Odiz and Iran's Ali Ashgar Soltanieh joined other atomic energy negotiators to discuss the nuclear threat in the Middle East.
According to a person who sat through the meeting and spoke to The Weekend Australian, it started slowly between the Israeli and Iranian - each put their country's position, which the other normally only saw reported in the media.
Mr Soltanieh peppered his presentation with quotations from the Koran and Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamanei, saying Iran was committed to a peaceful nuclear program. Iran's program was within the guidelines of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, he insisted.
Then Ms Zafary-Odiz had her turn. If Israel's security could be guaranteed, it would support a nuclear-free Middle East, she said. An official in the room summed her up as reflecting the 1995 declaration of President Shimon Peres: "Give me peace and I'll give you the bomb."
While these presentations were directed at the group, finally it became too much and the Iranian directly addressed his Israeli counterpart. According to the newspaper Haaretz, Mr Soltanieh asked: "Do you or do you not have nuclear weapons?"
He would have known no Israeli official would confirm what is widely accepted as fact - that Israel has its own nuclear arsenal. In response, Ms Zafary-Odiz is reported to have smiled.
The source who sat through the meetings told The Weekend Australian Mr Evans's chairmanship was "masterful". He allowed the Israeli and Iranian to state their positions and directly address each other but ensured it did not become acrimonious. This was a regional meeting, and Mr Evans's aim was to ensure that in front of their neighbours and each other Israel and Iran could outline their positions.
The second exchange between the two, according to another source, came in the corridors. As they tried to pass, they greeted each other and said "excuse me", but did not shake hands.
The commission was an initiative of Kevin Rudd. The Prime Minister suggested setting it up on a visit to Kyoto in June last year, and it became a joint project of Australia and Japan.
Mr Rudd pushed for Mr Evans to be chairman, and the Japanese agreed as long as he shared the post with their former foreign minister, Yoriko Kawaguchi.
The secretariat is based in the Department of Foreign Affairs in Canberra, and with the energy of Mr Evans, fresh from running the International Crisis Group, it is seen as an Australian body.
When the Cairo meeting was suggested to Israeli officials they were interested. They know the UN nuclear weapons organisations well, and are suspicious of them, but were not familiar with this new body. Their interest turned to intrigue when they looked at the list of invitees: the US, several European countries, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq, Morocco, Turkey - and Iran.
Israeli officials sounded out Australian officials about whether Canberra was committed to the new body.
Since the fall of the shah in 1979, Israel has shunned meetings attended by Iran. It's not known whether the plan for these talks went to the level of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but one Israeli official said it certainly went close. "This was not mundane," the official said. "A representative of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission doesn't travel light-heartedly to a meeting attended by an Iranian official."
Despite Israel, Egypt and others confirming the presence of the Iranian official, the Iranian media denied he had attended - a move seen as aimed at a domestic audience.
For an Iranian official to be sitting at the same table as an Israeli, or exchanging polite excuse-me's in the corridor, is still a bridge too far for some in the Iranian regime.
No comments:
Post a Comment