>Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>> As the Iran-Contra affair showed, Israel isn't averse to dealing with
>> Iran. As post-revolutionary Iran becomes more liberal and officially
>> moves into the U.S. orbit, does Israel have anything to worry about
>> from the Iranian quarters?
>
>Israeli officials constantly denounce Iran, even more than they do Iraq.
They do, but aren't they primarily for domestic consumption, as are denunciations of Zionism by the Iranian government?
***** Financial Times (London) June 21, 1999, Monday LONDON EDITION 1 SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 06 HEADLINE: Iran moves to open dialogue with Israel BYLINE: By Mark Huband in Cairo DATELINE: London
Iran is attempting to reopen lines of communication with Israel after two decades of bitter enmity between the two states.
An Israeli official, responding to reports in an Israeli newspaper yesterday, said last night: "There was some hint of this about two months ago. But as far as I know, nothing systematic." The report in the Ha'aretz newspaper quoted UK officials as saying that Mohamed Khatami, the Iranian president, had asked British diplomats to facilitate contacts between Iran and Israel as a means of reducing tension between the two states.
The British foreign office yesterday denied the report's claim that the UK government was involved in co-ordinating a rapprochement, or that it had any knowledge of any discussions between the two countries.
But US State Department analysts who have been closely observing Israeli and Iranian strategies yesterday regarded the report as consistent with moves by both countries, which have retained covert links for much of the past two decades despite public animosity and Iran's backing for anti-Israeli Hizbollah fighters in Lebanon.
"Iran has an immediate interest to re-establish the oil relationship which existed between Iran and Israel in the 1950s-70s, when Iran did not take part in any of the Arab boycotts. Iran may be Islamic, but it is chalk and cheese with Arab countries," said one State Department analyst.
Until Iran's 1979 revolution, 90 per cent of Israel's crude oil was imported from Iran.... ***** -- Yoshie
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