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Cheek-to-cheek: President Moshe Katzav rubs up against Iranian President Khatami as he greets Jordan's King Abdullah. (AP)
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| By Associated Press April 9, 2005 |
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| When Abdullah isn't looking: Presidents Katzav and Khatami eyes Queen Rania of Jordan. (AP) |
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Iranian President Mohammad Khatami strongly denied shaking hands and chatting with Israeli President Moshe Katsav at Pope John Paul II's funeral, state-run media reported Saturday.
But while Iran "morally and logically" doesn't recognize Israel, Khatami said the Islamic republic, which backs several anti-Israeli militant groups, will not interfere in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
Following the pope's mass funeral on Friday, Katsav said he shook hands and chatted briefly with Khatami and Bashar Assad, leaders of Israel's archenemies, Iran and Syria.
Syria on Friday confirmed the handshake between Syrian president Assad and Katsav, but downplayed its political significance.
But after returning to Iran, Khatami denied shaking Katsav's hand.
"These allegations are false like other allegations made by Israeli media and I have not had any meeting with any one from Zionist (Israeli) regime," the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Khatami as saying.
Israeli media reported Friday that during the Pope's funeral ceremony, Khatami held brief talks with Katzav, which some suggested was a small breakthrough between the leaders of two nations that have had no relations since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran toppled the late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who held close ties with Israel.
The Iranian-born Katsav said he and Khatami conversed about Yazd, the region in central Iran where both men were born. "The two of us were born in the same region in Iran, two years apart," Katsav was quoted as saying. Iranian-born Katsav said he spoke in his native Farsi to Khatami about their common city of birth.
"The president of Iran extended his hand to me, I shook it and told him in Farsi, 'May peace be upon you,"' Katsav said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom lent weight to his president's comments that the handshake with Khatami happened, but said he doubted it could represent a diplomatic breakthrough
"I hope that it can be a new beginning, certainly. But frankly I doubt it," Shalom said in an interview with Italian daily La Stampa published Saturday. "Khatami and Assad are two extremists. It could only have happened thanks to the truly magnetic personality of John Paul II."
Friday's funeral at St. Peter's Square brought the biggest array of world leaders in history to bid farewell to the pope at a service drawing millions to Rome for one of the largest religious gatherings of modern times.
Khatami reiterated Iran's opposition to Israel, but said his country won't meddle in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
"As long as the Palestinian nation doesn't feel that its rights have been met, no peace plan will succeed but we won't interfere," the radio quoted Khatami as saying upon his return from Italy.
Iran and Israel have been bitter enemies for years _ Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called Israel a "cancerous tumor" that must be wiped out from the world map.
Iran is accused of supporting Lebanon's Shiite Muslim militant group, Hezbollah, which fought Israeli soldiers until they withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000. It continues to launch occasion attacks against Israeli troops in a disputed parcel of land on the southern Lebanese border.
Iran also hosts militant Palestinian groups, including Hamas, and U.S. President George W. Bush recently accused Iran of being the "the world's primary state sponsor of terror."
Israel has been a leading critic of Iran's nuclear program accusing the Islamic Republic of seeking to develop a nuclear bomb. Tehran has denied the charges, saying its nuclear program is geared toward generating electricity, not bomb.
Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters, has repeatedly said the destruction of Israel is the only way to solve the problems of the Middle East. But Iran's reformers including Khatami avoid using such a language.
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