WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has defended his disclosure of classified US documents by praising and singling out Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an example of a world leader who, according to him, believes the publications will aid global diplomacy.
"We can see the Israeli Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu coming out with a very interesting statement that leaders should speak in public like they do in private whenever they can," Assange told Time Magazine in an answer to a question 'what is the effect thus far of the latest round of leaks and what effect do you want to have from these leaders' in an interview on Wednesday.
"He believes that the result of this publication, which makes the sentiments of many privately held beliefs public, are promising a pretty good [indecipherable] will lead to some kind of increase in the peace process in the Middle East and particularly in relation to Iran," Assange said.
"I just noticed today Iran has agreed to nuclear talks. Maybe that's coincidence or maybe it's coming out of this process, but it's certainly not being cancelled by this process," he added. "There is simply too much volume for us to be able to see. But looking at what we can, I can see that there is tremendous re-arrangement of viewing about many different countries," he said.
It is interesting to not that a senior Turkish official has publicly blamed Israel for the WikiLeaks release. Addressing reporters on Wednesday, Huseyin Celik, deputy leader of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AKP party, hinted that Israel engineered the leak of hundreds of thousands of United States diplomatic cables as a plot to pressure the Turkish government.
"One has to look at which countries are pleased with these," Celik was quoted as saying. "Israel has been making statements for days, even before the release of these documents." "Documents were released and they immediately said, 'Israel will not suffer from this.' How did they know that?" Celik asked.
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