Israel rebuffed dialogue with Iran, Levy says

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -- Israel turned down an Iranian offer to set up a secret channel for dialogue between the two countries that are technically at war, former Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy said on Tuesday.

Levy told Israel Radio the attempts at dialogue took place over the past year while he was serving as foreign minister in Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's government.

He said people close to Iran's reform-minded President Mohammad Khatami put out feelers to arrange a secret dialogue with the Jewish state.

"There were a lot of attempts from Iran and other sources. Of course these things were checked and weighed according to the potential results," Levy said.

"I can't say for sure why they wanted to hold contacts but the results of them was one big question mark. Things were not ripe," Levy said, adding that one of his concerns was that Israel might offend its closest ally the United States.

Levy resigned from the post in July in protest at what he said were far-reaching concessions on Jerusalem that Barak was prepared to make to forge an elusive peace with Palestinians.

Israel and Iran had diplomatic relations until Tehran's 1979 Islamic revolution when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini severed ties with the Jewish state.

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