Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas worked as a KGB agent in Syria during the 1980s, Israel’s Channel 1 reported, citing newly-uncovered archive documents.
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The same unproven theory speculates that Abbas’s handler was working as an agent for the KGB in Damascus and was no less than Mikhail Bogdanov – the same Mikhail Bogdanov who is now Russia’s deputy foreign minister, and who is now working closely with both the Israelis and the Palestinians on the proposed Palestine-Israeli talks.
As for peace talks between Israel and Palestinians, “the most important thing is to pick the right timing”, Zakharova told reporters Thursday. “But unfortunately, there were talks yesterday in Jerusalem between aides of President Putin and Prime Minister Netanyahu where Prime Minister Netanyahu proposed postponing the meeting to a date that I do not yet know”, said Abbas.
“This raises legitimate questions about Israel’s long term intentions which are compounded by the statements of some Israeli ministers that there should never be a Palestinian state”, the report added. “Intensive contacts on this are ongoing”.
The last round of peace talks broke down two and a half years ago, with no progress reported during months of US -brokered negotiations.
Abbas has been fishing for the last couple of years for an alternative peace process, frustrated with President Barack Obama’s inability to make any progress on a peace deal.
The documents, obtained by CNN from the Mitrokhin Archive at Churchill College at the University of Cambridge, say that Abbas, who completed graduate work in Moscow in 1982, was a KGB agent while he was a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Damascus. Israeli Channel 1 TV broadcasted the claims that the 81-year-old was a KGB spy when he lived in Damascus, in Syria. This information comes from a collection of notes smuggled out of the USSR by KGB defector Vasily Mitrokhin. His family moved to the Syrian capital in 1948 after the creation of Israel where he founded the Fatah movement with the now deceased Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in 1959. Abbas reportedly acted as an agent for the Russian KGB intelligence service in the 1980s, according to Soviet documents.
At the end of the reference to Abbas in the document it simply says: “KGB agent”.
A Palestinian official, who declined to be identified as he was not authorised to speak publicly on the matter, said that Abbas had served as an “official liaison with the Soviets, so he hardly needed to be a spy”, without elaborating. These were captured by Israel during the 1967 war. But with Abbas and Netanyahu at odds on almost every major issue between them, chances for substantial progress would seem slim. The Netanyahu government has tried to discredit Abbas, accusing him of anti-Israel incitement and alleging he is not a partner for a peace deal.
The president’s spokesman described the claim as a foolish Israeli “smear”.
Peace efforts have been at a standstill since a US-led initiative collapsed in April 2014.
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Israel has been widely criticized, including by its close ally the USA, for building settlements in territories captured in the 1967 Mideast war, land the Palestinians want as part of their future state.
