(10.8.2017) The spy agency’s involvement, Setton told The Times of Israel this week, meant that the Foreign Ministry was out of the race. With the Mossad involved, nothing tangible would come of the diplomats’ project to bring Jerusalem and Pyongyang closer together.

And so it proved. Israel’s little-known attempt to reach out to North Korea was cut short by then-prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in early 1993, presumably due to US pressure.