Israel is "spreading spy hubs across Asia," Iran's state presstv.ir is ranting today.
"According to well-informed sources, the Israeli Embassy in Turkmenistan, which was opened under the US pressure, is a guise for Tel Aviv's espionage operations," claims presstv.ir.
In fact, Israel has experienced years of difficulties attempting to get its envoy to Turkmenistan approved by Ashgabat.
Recently Turkmenistan backed out of a $300 million deal long in the works with an Israel firm to purchase a satellite for both civilian and military purposes, the Russian-language Israeli news site izrus.co.il reported, citing a "competent source" in military industry. The source said that despite many meetings and presentations of documentation, the deal never was concluded -- and he added that it was for the same reasons the envoy hasn't been approved.
Israel first began negotiations to open up a diplomatic presence in Ashgabat in May 2009. Reuven Dinel, a native of Lithuania alleged to be a former Mossad agent in the former Soviet Union, was appointed. But in June 2009, 12 days after Israel's Foreign Ministry announced the appointment, Hasan Firuzabadi, head of the Iranian General Staff, urged the Turkmen government to stop the opening of the Israeli mission, since he claimed it would be involved in "training subversives against Iran."
The issue was raised when President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov visited Tehran in January 2010. Dinel, who had been expelled by Russian security services from Moscow in 1996 on charges of receiving clandestine satellite photos, was not accredited by the Turkmen government, and later was appointed ambassador to Ukraine. Another diplomat, Haim Koren, was then appointed in August 2010, but he is still awaiting accreditation from the Turkmen government, which hasn't commented publicly about the situation.
The source also told izrus.co.il that no Israeli firm has succeeded in making any weapons sales in Turkmenistan in a decade. In 2008, according to a statement from the Russian company Bespilotnyye sistemy, Israeli businessmen lost their bid in a tender for the sale of drones offered by the Turkmen Interior Ministry. Russian partners then tried to help another Israeli company, owned by high-ranking officers of the Israeli Defense Forces, to sell drones, but failed again. Yet another firm with two intermediaries is now attempting once again to sell defensive weapons to Turkmenistan to provide security in Turkmenistan's Caspian waters, says izrus.co.il.
Interestingly, Turkmenistan was absent during the vote at the UN General Assembly on whether Palestine should be recognized as a state, regnum.ru reported.
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