Israel uncooperative in Gaza flotilla probe:UN

Israel is not cooperating with the U.N. Human Rights Council's probe of May's deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, and it was unclear if investigators will be able to speak with Israeli soldiers involved, a U.N. official said Tuesday.

Juan Carlos Monge, a U.N. human rights officer working with the fact-finding mission, said the panel was speaking with other witnesses and government officials in Turkey and Jordan.

But Israel hasn't granted an invitation to the team, which is examining whether Israeli commandos broke international law by killing nine pro-Palestinian activists trying to break the Jewish state's blockade of Gaza. Eight of the dead activists were Turks, and the ninth was Turkish-American. Israel says the soldiers acted in self defense.

Monge said in an e-mail to The Associated Press that the mission would only speak with Israeli soldiers about the incident if permission was given by the Israeli government. Such approval is important to the investigation if it hopes to be objective, but Israel has refused to work with council probes in the past, citing their bias.

Israel's U.N. mission said Tuesday it will not comment on the investigation, but Israeli officials have suggested since the panel's creation in June that the Jewish state wouldn't cooperate. Israel considers the Human Rights Council to be anti-Israel, and points to a series of critical resolutions by the body in its four-year history.

Israel is working with a separate U.N. group under New Zealand's ex-Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer and Colombia's ex-President Alvaro Uribe that is also examining the incident, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor.

But Palmor said the 47-nation rights council "deals obsessively and morbidly with Israel."

Former U.N. war crimes prosecutor Desmond de Silva, Trinidadian judge Karl T. Hudson-Phillips and Malaysian women's rights advocate Mary Shanthi Dairiam are investigating on behalf of the rights council.

They will present their report to the council on Sept. 27.

The separate examination ordered by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon includes an Israeli and a Turkish representative on the panel, and both countries have pledged cooperation.

Netanyahu cancels IAEA meeting to make time for his holiday

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has snubbed U.N. atomic watchdog chief Yukiya Amano who is on his first visit to Israel, the Haaretz newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Amano, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), had asked to meet with Netanyahu months ago, but the scheduled meeting was abruptly cancelled last week as the premier planned to go on holiday, the paper said.

It said the meeting had been due to take place on Monday afternoon, shortly after the IAEA chief landed in Israel and a few hours before the premier was due to start his holiday.

The daily cited a diplomat familiar with the visit as saying Amano was told that the meeting had been canceled due to Netanyahu's vacation.

"Netanyahu's decision to cancel his meeting with Amano raised eyebrows on Monday, particularly given the premier's fixation on Iran's nuclear program," Haaretz said.

Asked about the report, a senior official who asked not to be named said he was "not aware that that is true."

The visit comes against a backdrop of demands by some IAEA members that Israel, generally considered to be the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear-armed power, sign up to the international Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Netanyahu last month secured assurances from U.S. President Barack Obama that a proposed 2012 conference on establishing a nuclear weapons-free Middle East would not single out Israel.

Israeli President Shimon Peres, considered to be the father of Israel's nuclear program, is due to meet Amano in Jerusalem on Wednesday.

Amano held talks on Monday with the head of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission, Shaul Chorev, and was due to tour the Soreq Nuclear Research Centre, whose activities are monitored by the IAEA, Haaretz said.

The IAEC, which invited Amano, and the IAEA did not immediately provide details of the trip.

Israel is to raise with Amano its concerns about Iran's nuclear program, which the Jewish state, the United States and other Western countries believe is ultimately aimed at producing an atomic bomb.

Iran, which on Saturday began loading fuel into its Russian-built first nuclear power plant, denies the allegations, saying its program is for civil energy purposes only.

Ties between the IAEA and Israel were chilly during the tenure of Amano's predecessor, Mohamed ElBaradei.