Israeli officials denied a report that Israel spied on closed-door talks between the United States and Iran over the latter’s nuclear program.
Israel provided inside information from the talks to Republican members of Congress in order to turn them against the deal, the Wall Street Journal reported March 23.
“It is one thing for the U.S. and Israel to spy on each other. It is another thing for Israel to steal U.S. secrets and play them back to U.S. legislators to undermine U.S. diplomacy,” a senior U.S. official told the newspaper.
The White House discovered Israel was collecting information, U.S. officials told the newspaper, when U.S. intelligence agencies spying on Israel intercepted communications among Israeli officials that included details of the confidential talks.
Among the pieces of classified information collected by Israel was the number of centrifuges that Iran could keep operating as part of the final deal.
Israeli officials told the Wall Street Journal that the country’s intelligence services did not spy directly on the American negotiators, but rather found the information through surveillance of Iran and other world powers involved in the negotiations, as well as from some of the world powers themselves. — jta