Israel ties with Iraq Kurds denied

BEIRUT, Lebanon, June 23 (UPI) -- A Kurdish official denied Wednesday the existence of Israeli companies or centers in Iraq's Kurdistan to train Kurdish Peshmerga fighters.

Mahmoud Othman, a former member of the disbanded Iraqi Governing Council, told the Saudi daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat, monitored in Beirut, "investigations with Kurdish leaders in Iraq's Kurdistan indicated that such reports are not true at all."

"Kurds do not need today to be trained by Israelis or others since they have been trained well for long years," Othman said in comments on the report published in the U.S. New Yorker magazine.

"There might be Jewish elements operating with international humanitarian groups and companies and this is normal but it does not imply relations with Israel."

He charged circulating such reports at this particular time are "aimed at harming Iraqi Kurds and undermining national unity with Arab compatriots as well as with Arab countries."

Othman acknowledged the Kurds in Iraq had established relations with Israel in the 1960s in their efforts to combat the former Baath regime.