“The prime minister was busy with a confidential and classified activity,” Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.
“Having had the best intentions, his military attache... acted to defend that activity and did this through an announcement to the media” that said he had spent the day at a security facility in Israel, it said.
But the statement did not deny media reports that Netanyahu had flown to Russia aboard a private plane on Monday to discuss Moscow’s arms sales to arch-foes Syria and Iran.
In Moscow, the Russian authorities said that the Israeli premier had met neither his counterpart Vladimir Putin nor President Dmitry Medvedev, but did not explicitly deny the trip itself.
The mystery around the prime minister’s day-long disappearance from public view is unfolding alongside another—that the Arctic Sea cargo ship supposedly seized by pirates and later recovered by Russia was secretly carrying S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems bound for Iran.
Russia has denied that the ship was carrying S-300s and Russian investigators have announced that their inspection of the vessel turned up only its official cargo of timber.
Israel has for years tried to convince Russia not to sell S-300 surface-to-air missile systems to Iran, which the Jewish state fears Tehran could deploy around its controversial nuclear sites.
Russia reportedly agreed to sell the systems to Tehran several years ago. Following an August 18 visit, Israeli President Shimon Peres said that he had secured a promise from his counterpart Dmitry Medvedev that Russia would review its decision.
Widely considered to be the Middle East’s sole if undeclared nuclear power, Israel suspects Iran of trying to develop an atomic bomb under the guise of a civilian nuclear programme, a charge Tehran denies.
Israel considers Iran to be its arch-enemy following repeated statements by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the Jewish state is doomed to be “wiped off the map.”
source: www.thenews.com.pk
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