BREAKING NEWS

Palestinians reject report Abbas was KGB agent as 'smear campaign'

A spokesperson for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has dismissed a claim by Israeli researchers that he served as a Soviet KGB agent in Syria over three decades ago, AFP reported Thursday.
The PA president's spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh told AFP that Wednesday's reported finding was part of a "smear campaign" to impede on Russian-proposed peace efforts between the Israelis and Palestinians.
Israel's public Channel 1 reported on Wednesday night that two Hebrew University researchers had obtained a trove of KGB archives that included a list that named Abbas as a Soviet agent operating in 1983 in Damascus.
However on Thursday, Abbas's spokesperson charged that the reported discovery "falls under the framework of Israeli absurdities which we have got used to."