• Military
• WMD

• Intelligence Menu               

• Systems
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Imagery
• Links

• Homeland Security
• Space

UK seeking Israel assurance not to forge more passports one year on

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

London, Feb 18, IRNA -- The British government is still awaiting a pledge from Israel never to again clone or forge passports almost a year after making the initial demand.

The demand for “formal assurance that in the future the state of Israel would never be party to the misuse of British passports” was made by former foreign secretary David Miliband back in March last year.

Miliband said “compelling evidence” had been found that Israel’s intelligence agency had cloned British passports following Mossad’s latest assassination of a Hamas official in Dubai in January 2010.

But in a parliamentary answer published on Friday, Middle East Minister Alistair Burt revealed that the British government was continuing to raise the demand but without any success.

“We have not yet received any formal assurances from the Israeli Government on this issue,” said Burt, listing that the demand had been issued in a string of meetings.

The issue was raised most recently by Foreign Secretary William Hague with the Israeli ambassador to the UK in October 2010 and also during his visit to Israel in November 2010 with Foreign Minister Lieberman.

“On both occasions he stressed that the misuse of British passports was unacceptable and should not happen again. Our ambassador in Tel Aviv also made this clear to the Israeli Government in November 2010,” Burt said.

The demand was made following the expulsion of an Israeli diplomat, believed to be Mossad’s London chief and has been linked as a precondition for any replacement, but no mention of this was made in the parliamentary reply.

Britons travelling to Israel were also warned by the Foreign Office not to hand their passports over to Israeli officials unless it is absolutely necessary.

Last May, Israeli daily Yediot said that Israel had avoided signing such a commitment, “probably because it would be interpreted as a confession that Israel did misuse British passports in the Dubai operation”.

It reported that “an improvement in bilateral relations is expected and perhaps the rehabilitation of the intelligence ties between the two countries” if the Conservatives form the next government as happened in coalition with the Liberal Democrats.