Last update - 00:00 25/07/2007
Israeli, Syrian UN ambassadors disagree over handshake
By Reuters
Whether it was a chance encounter, an ambush at the men's room, or a carefully staged first meeting, the United Nations ambassadors of Israel and Syria walked side by side and may have exchanged words for the first time Tuesday.
Israel and Syria have been passing messages in recent months, largely through international mediators, to explore the possibility of resuming peace talks.
Israeli Ambassador Dan Gillerman told reporters he had shaken hands and spoken with his Syrian counterpart Bashar Ja'afari when the two met in a hallway Tuesday outside the UN Security Council.
"That's the first time we spoke," said Gillerman, who has been Israel's ambassador since the start of 2003. The two were seen walking from near the men's room outside the Security Council into the antechamber of the council.
Asked whether they had discussed anything more significant than the weather, Gillerman said, "We did not discuss the weather." Asked if they had shaken hands, he said, "Yes."
Gillerman later told Reuters that he was taking a group of Israeli school children on a tour of the United Nations when an Israeli journalist accompanying them stopped to interview the Syrian ambassador.
But the reporter had identified himself as Romanian rather than Israeli, and when Gillerman learned of this deception, he quickly sought out Ja'afari and apologized for the journalist.
Ja'afari, however, denied he had spoken to Gillerman.
"I wasn't walking with him ... he was following me," he told reporters.
"I didn't address him, I didn't talk with him." Asked if he had shaken hands, Ja'afari said, "Neither hands nor feet."
The encounter took place at a spot where reporters gather to speak to diplomats going in and out of the council.
An official at the Israeli mission said the two ambassadors met by chance while Gillerman was taking a group of Israeli schoolchildren on a tour of the United Nations.