Israeli official urges probe over leak relating to Iran

The Israeli army Chief Military Brigadier General Sima Vaknin-Gil called for probing the leak of sensitive information to mass media related to Iran, the Anadolu Agency reported Israeli media saying yesterday.

According to Israeli media, a high-ranking security official allegedly leaked information to leading Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Vaknin-Gil revealed in a letter obtained by Israeli TV Channel 2 that the Haaretz article had caused “serious harm” to Israeli national security.

The article provided details about an ongoing legal dispute between Israel and Iran over an arbitration involving a joint oil pipeline project, dating back to before Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Channel 2 reported that Haaretz insisted its article “was warranted from a journalistic standpoint and that its publication had not violated any state rules.”

Vaknin-Gil said that the most sensitive point in the leaked secret related to the point that Israel had set up a secret fund in case the government or local oil companies lose in international court cases and are forced to pay compensation to Iran.

She said, according to Times of Israel, that there were only a handful of senior officials who knew about the fund. “A fact that suggests the leaks came from highly placed officials in possession of many other state secrets,” Vaknin-Gil reiterated.

The arbitration involved a joint Israeli-Iranian venture that was established in 1968 to carry Asian oil from Israel to Europe.

Following the Islamic Revolution, Iran ignored the deal, but it has repeatedly demanded Israel pay back debts that were left unpaid when the arrangement was still on.

The two sides took the case to international arbitration. A Swiss arbitration panel last year ruled that Israel should pay Iran for the loss of its stake in the pipeline.