Benjamin Netanyahu and Iran’s Hassan Rouhani Both Going to Davos Economic Forum

By Reuters January 10, 2014

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will both attend the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos this month, the organisers told Reuters on Friday.

Asked about their attendance, a spokeswoman for the forum said: “Yes, it’s confirmed.” She declined to name other participants at the annual meeting. The Geneva-based World Economic Forum plans to publish the guest list on Jan 15.

The occasion will bring the two leaders, whose nations have been sworn foes for decades, into a tightly guarded conference that gives many of the world’s rich and powerful a chance to rub shoulders aware from the public eye.

It was not immediately clear if the two might meet at the Jan. 22-25 gathering, which will include thousands of guests, including politicians, billionaires, celebrities, academics and activists.

The theme of the 2014 Davos meeting, the first to be held since Rouhani’s election in June, is “The Reshaping of the World: Consequences for Society, Politics and Business”.

The start of this year’s forum falls on the same day as a conference aimed at ending the war in Syria, known as Geneva 2. Iran has not been invited to attend Geneva 2 because of U.S. objections and Iran’s unwillingness to sign up to an agreement forged at a previous Geneva conference on Syria.

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