Israeli envoy mum on WikiLeaks report

MANILA, Philippines –  Israel’s top diplomat in the Philippines was mum on the latest disclosure of whistleblower website WikiLeaks that Iran tried to deal with Philippine banks to evade financial sanction from the United States.

“I have no comment on the issue,” Ambassador Zvi Vapni said in a text message to The STAR.

In a diplomatic cable sent to Washington, the US embassy in Tel Aviv showed the presentation made by a US delegation, led by Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Patricia McNerney, to an Israeli inter-agency delegation headed by Foreign Affairs Deputy Director General (Strategic Affairs) Miriam Ziv at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Israel on Oct. 24, 2005.

The US presented ways in which Iran tried to evade financial sanctions.

A representative from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said Israel has seen most of the information covered in the briefing.

The PMO representative said Iran was trying to do more to evade sanctions and was still taking steps to do it as described in the briefing.

Israel, she said, had not seen much activity involving brokers. Instead, it was focusing its efforts on personal bank accounts, where Israel saw increasing activity aimed at evading US sanctions.

The PMO representative said “there are indications that Iran is also trying to do business with banks in the Persian Gulf and Far East (especially China and the Philippines) regions.”

“Israel is now trying to locate the specific banks and accounts,” according to the cable.

The PMO representative said sanctions against Bank Sepah in Iran made a difference and “meant something” to the Iranians. Bankers were also worried on the issue.

The results, she said, “are getting to the government.”

The cable cited the Israeli Foreign Ministry representative who applauded the presentation, noting that it gave “the big picture.”

The representative said Israel had new data it could add, but saw no new kind of evasive activity in the Asian region.