Oman on Tuesday denied it was establishing ties with Israel, a day after the chief of the Mossad intelligence service publicly touted the forging of diplomatic relations between Muscat and Jerusalem.

Oman’s Foreign Ministry, in a tweet, said such claims were “baseless.”

Oman denies it’s establishing diplomatic ties with Israel https://t.co/ErZw0UqCEa — The Times of Israel (@TimesofIsrael) July 2, 2019

Yossi Cohen, the head of Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad, had claimed that Israel was renewing formal relations with Oman and planned to open a diplomatic mission in the Sultanate.

Speaking at a conference yesterday in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv, Cohen said that,

“Just recently, renewal of formal relations with Oman was declared and the establishment of a representative office of the foreign ministry in that country”.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry had declined to comment on Cohen’s remarks, the Times of Israel reported. Likewise Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who has long sought to emphasize Israel’s normalization drive – has not commented on the renewal of ties.

(Middle East Monitor, PC, Social Media)