Israel denies "close ties" with Egypt's military leaders

Israel denied maintaining "a close relationship" with Egypt's military leadership, Army Radio reported Sunday, citing unnamed Israeli officials.

The denial followed a report published Friday in the New York Times which quoted an unidentified Israeli official as saying that Jerusalem was leveraging its influence to convince Washington not to cut its military and economic aid to Egypt.

The official reportedly said Israel was telling its "friends" in the U.S. Congress and the White House that cutting the 1.5 billion U.S. dollars in annual aid would weaken the Egyptian army and undermine its efforts to stabilize the situation in the country.

Israeli officials have largely refrained from commenting publicly on Egypt's turmoil, attesting "to both the fragility and the necessity of Israel's relations with its strategically important neighbor," according to the New York Times report, whose writer noted that the Israeli official's remarks were made prior to the Egyptian military's dispersal of sit-ins organized by supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi on Wednesday.

Israel's former Foreign Minister and head of the Foreign and Security Affairs Knesset (parliament) Committee, Avigdor Lieberman, also denied the report in an interview with the local Israeli Kol- Rega radio.

"Everybody's trying to forcefully pull us into the mayhem," but "Israel has no part in what's going on in Egypt," said Lieberman.