ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani foreign office and senior officials, including the national security adviser, have denied reports in Israeli media that Pakistani officials recently visited Israel or met with Israeli officials, reiterating that Pakistan would continue to stand for the right of Palestinians to a two-state solution.
The Israel Hayom newspaper reported this week that an adviser to Prime Minister Imran Khan, Sayed Zulfikar Bukhari, had traveled to Israel in November to convey messages from the premier and the army chief to Israeli foreign ministry officials and the then Israeli spy chief Yossi Cohen.
Bukhari has denied the reports.
“DIDNOT go to Israel,” Bukhari said in a tweet on Monday.
DIDNOT go to Israel.
Funny bit is Pakistani paper says I went to Israel based on "Israeli news source" & Israeli paper says I went to Israel based on a “Pakistani source”-wonder who this imaginative Pakistani source is
Apparently, I’m the only one who was kept out of the loop. https://t.co/bcRO3osWMk— Sayed Z Bukhari (@sayedzbukhari) June 28, 2021
National security adviser Moeed Yusuf also denied that he had secretly met with Israeli officials.
“Let me state categorically and on record that I have not had any meetings with any Israeli officials nor have I visited Israel,” he wrote on Twitter. “The Prime Minister has been very clear on the matter. Pakistan shall continue to stand for Palestinians’ right to a just two-state solution. The rest are all conspiracy theories.”
Very disappointed to be informed that the leader of a major political party has insinuated that I had secretly met Israeli officials. Let me state categorically and on record that I have not had any meetings with any Israeli officials nor have I visited Israel. 1/2
— Moeed W. Yusuf (@YusufMoeed) June 28, 2021
Pakistan currently does not recognize the state of Israel over its thwarting of Palestinians’ aspirations for a state of their own. Israel captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the Sinai peninsula and the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights in the 1967 Middle East war. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future free state, a demand Pakistan has supported for decades.
The Pakistani foreign office has also rejected the reports regarding a visit by Pakistani officials to Israel.
“These reports are baseless and misleading. No such visit to Israel has been undertaken,” FO spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri was quoted by state-run media as saying.
The spokesperson said the FO had also rebutted “similar false reports” on December 18 of last year when the Israel Hayom and other Israeli media outlets reported in a veiled reference to Pakistan that a senior adviser to the leader of a large Muslim majority country in Asia that had no diplomatic ties with Israel had visited the Jewish state with a delegation of senior officials to discuss the potential normalization of relations. It was believed at the time that the report had referred to Bukhari.
“It is ridiculous and a pathetic attempt [to malign Pakistan],” Bukhari had told Arab News then, adding that those spreading these “lies and fairy tales [were] putting lives in danger.”
