Israel Reportedly Denies It’s Selling Arms to Iran

As a key player in the Iran-Contra scandal testified before a grand jury Friday, a U.S. official said that Israel has assured the United States that it has not resumed arms sales to Iran.

Robert W. Owen, who has received immunity from prosecution, appeared before the grand jury investigating whether laws were broken by the efforts to aid the Contras at a time when Congress had banned U.S. military assistance to them.

Owen, who has been cooperating with the investigation, testified in a closed session, but he has already detailed the involvement of former National Security Council official Lt. Col. Oliver L. North in the operation.

In testifying before the Iran-Contra hearing last May, Owen described himself as a courier for North and North’s main liaison with the Contras fighting the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua.

After reports of new Israeli arms sales to Iran appeared in the Arab press, the United States asked senior Israeli officials about them and was assured the reports were not true, said the U.S. official, who spoke Friday on condition that he not be identified.

The official said the United States had not found any evidence to corroborate news reports of such sales and, in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir issued a denial of the reports.

In 1985, the Israeli government mediated a secret arms deal between the United States and Iran.