Israeli experts help rehabilitate Iran's earthquake-hit areas

AFP, April, 2006

JERUSALEM (AFP) — While Iran repeatedly threatens to destroy Israel, the Islamic state has recently hosted experts from its arch rival who helped rehabilitate areas devastated by earthquakes.

The services of the three unnamed men, who are employees of a Tel-Aviv based company, were requested by Tehran through a Dutch contracting company which is itself partly owned by an Israeli, the mass selling Yediot Aharonot reported Sunday.

The experts examined ways to reinforce certain infrastructures, such as bridges, roads, sewage and pipes which had been destroyed in the massive earthquake which struck south-east Iran in late 2003.

Iran and the Jewish state had close economic ties before the 1979 Islamic revolution, with Israeli companies playing a central role in...