Claims of Uranium sale leave Palestinian ambassador unsatisfied with Yemeni apology

Palestine's ambassador in Sanaa, Yehia Rabah, said that he opposed the mediation endeavors exerted by Yemeni journalists between him and the Yemeni newspaper Som - Bom, which accused him and other Palestinian leaders of involvement in enriched uranium and red mercury smuggling transactions from Yemen to Israel that the report said took place in February 1997.

The newspaper published a report that said the Palestinian ambassador called Colonel Gabreal El-Ragoub, the head of Palestinian preventive security, and asked him to find a buyer for 65 kilograms of Uranium at a cost of a $1.65 million, causing the ambassador to call on the Yemeni Foreign Ministry to open an investigation concerning the report.

In a statement to ArabicNews.com today in Sanaa, Rabah said that Yemeni journalists mediated with him to stop the procedures expected to be taken by the Yemeni authorities against the newspaper and its chief editor. Rabah said journalists told him that the newspaper did not mean to harm him in a report intended to reveal the link between the Yemen Socialist Party and the Soviet Union.

Rabah said he refused this mediation, saying that his goal is to learn who stirred the newspaper into launching its campaign and the motives behind it, asking that if it's correct that the newspaper did not mean harm "then why did it publish the report without questioning me or investigating it?"