Both Iran and Syria on Wednesday rejected Israel's accusations that a ship it had intercepted in the Mediterranean was carrying arms from Iran for Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
At a joint news conference with his visiting Syrian counterpart Walid Muallem, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki dismissed the allegations out of hand, the state-run English-language broadcaster Press TV reported on its website.
Muallem echoed the denial. "The ship was not carrying Iranian-made weaponry for Syria or Lebanon" but was in fact carrying Syrian-made items for consumption in Iran, the website quoted the Syrian minister as saying.Israeli officials said earlier that they had intercepted an Antigua-flagged vessel off Cyprus carrying "hundreds of tonnes" of weapons that they said were being shipped from Iran to Hezbollah.
Deputy naval commander Rani Ben Yehuda said the cargo manifest for the seized crates indicated they were headed from Iran to Syria, but Israel offered no direct proof to implicate Iran or Hezbollah, and the Lebanese group declined to comment.Iran and Syria are the main foreign backers of the Shi'ite militant group Hezbollah but both deny that they provide anything other than moral support.
A UN Security Council resolution which brought an end to the devastating 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel demanded the disarmament of all militias in Lebanon and imposed a ban on all arms exports to them.
