Israel says held secret nuclear talks with Iran

Iran denies holding secret nuke talks with the Jewish state

.........

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM : Israeli and Iranian nuclear envoys held an unprecedented, if brief, conversation last month at a closed-door Middle East disarmament conference in Egypt, an Israeli official said on Thursday.

Israel and Iran attended a Sept. 29-30 Cairo meeting of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, an unofficial forum established by the Australian and Japanese governments, the group's Web site said.

"There were several meetings between a representative of our commission and an Iranian official in a regional context," Yael Doron told AFP.

"These meetings were held behind closed doors," she said, adding that they were organized by Australia.

But Iran's atomic energy organization denied that Iranian and Israeli experts held secret talks on regional nuclear issues, as announced by the Jewish state.

"This lie is a kind of psychological operation designed to affect the constant success of Iran's dynamic diplomacy in the Geneva and Vienna meetings," the organization’s spokesman, Ali Shirzadian, was quoted as saying.

The Israeli official declined to give details of the meetings, but the Haaretz daily said the officials discussed the chances of declaring the Middle East a nuclear-free zone.

"There were several meetings between a representative of our commission and an Iranian official in a regional context," spokeswoman Yael Doron told AFP.

"These meetings were held behind closed doors," she said, adding that they were organised by Australia.

She declined to give further details of the talks, the first between the two arch foes to be officially disclosed since the shah of Iran was deposed in 1979.

The Israeli newspaper said Meirav Zafary-Odiz, director of policy and arms control for the Israeli nuclear agency, and Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency, met several times in Cairo at the end of September.