The head of Israeli’s intelligence agency, MOSSAD, held a secret meeting with a group of U.S. senators last week, the Prime Minister’s Office said today.
And he did in fact bring up the possibility of purposefully ‘throwing a grenade’ into nuclear talks with Iran in order to get a better deal in the long run while speaking to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.
The PMO issued a statement confirming the rendezvous with U.S. lawmakers and what MOSSAD chief Tamir Pardo said to them in response to a news report that Pardo had gone ‘rogue’ and broken with the administration over sanctions on Iran.
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It also sought to clarify remarks Pardo made to Kerry. The United States’ chief diplomat said yesterday that an Israeli intelligence official said new sanctions on Iran handed down from Congress would be ‘like throwing a grenade into the process.’
The Prime Minister’s Office acknowledged today that Pardo did say that, but he did not use it in the context it is being reported, and he believes that additional sanctions are warranted, it said.
Participants in the Congressional delegation to Israel came away with mixed messages from the foreign government.
‘We met with a number of government officials from many different parts of the government. There’s not a uniform view there,’ Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso told Bloomberg News.
Bloomberg walked away from discussions with lawmakers on the trip and their staffers with the impression that the Israeli spy chief did not agree with his country’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on the necessity of new sanctions on Iran.
Read More: MOSSAD weighs into Iran sanctions row at secret meeting with senators
Niamh Harris
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