Israel’s ambassador to Britain held a brief meeting on Thursday at the Foreign Office to answer questions following a diplomatic dispute over the slaying of a Hamas leader.
Britain has said it will investigate how some suspects in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh came to have British passports - and how they might have been forged.
Names on some of the passports matched people living in Israel, raising possible links to Israel’s Mossad spy agency.
Dubai police on Monday released names and photos of 11 suspects -10 men and one woman - who entered the country on fraudulent European passports.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, said that in Thursday’s meeting, Peter Ricketts, a top diplomat, made clear to ambassador Ron Prosor that Britain was determined to investigate the issue.
Mr. Ricketts “made clear how seriously we take any suggestion of fraudulent use of British passports” and “explained the concern we have for British passport holders in Israel,” Mr. Miliband said.
“He made clear that we wanted to give Israel every opportunity to share with us what it knows about this incident, and we hope and expect that they will cooperate fully with the investigation,” he said, adding he would raise the issue with Israel’s foreign minister when they meet in Brussels in the next few days.
Mr. Prosor told journalists after the 20-minute meeting that he was not able to add additional information to Britain’s request.
Meanwhile, Israel’s ambassador to Ireland was also summoned to Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs amid suspicions that Mossad agents used three forged Irish passports.
Ambassador Zion Evrony, said after the hour-long meeting he had nothing useful to tell Ireland because he knew nothing confidential about the Dubai assassination.
