Israel denies spying on Iran talks hotels

Swiss and Austrian investigators have launched probes into alleged spying in hotels hosting delicate Iranian nuclear talks, with Israel denying June 11 its secret services were involved.

The revelation comes in run-up to a June 30 deadline for a historic agreement between Iran and world powers on curtailing Tehran's nuclear programme in return for relief from punishing sanctions, and a day after a Russian-based security firm said a computer worm widely linked to Israel was used to spy on the negotiations.
 
Israel is vehemently opposed to a nuclear deal with Iran, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning that the accord would not "block Iran's path to the bomb".
 
But it has denied spying on the talks with deputy foreign minister Tzipi Hotovely telling Israeli army radio on June 11: "There is no basis to the all the international reports on Israel's involvement in the affair.    

"What is much more important is that we prevent a bad agreement, otherwise at the end of the day we'll find ourselves with an Iranian nuclear umbrella."  

The Swiss attorney general's office confirmed it had got government clearance to launch a probe into alleged spying on May 6 and conducted a raid six days later, seizing computer equipment, due to "suspicion of illegal intelligence services operating in Switzerland."  

It did not specify if hotels were targeted.
 
"The aim of this raid was on one hand to gather evidence and to on the other verify if information systems had been infected by malware," the attorney general's office said in an email.
 
Austria -- which has also hosted numerous rounds of the nuclear talks --  said June 11 it was also investigating possible spying at meeting venus there.
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