An Israeli Foreign Ministry official in Jerusalem on Thursday flatly denied a recent contention by Jordanian King Abdullah II that Israel had been trying to thwart the Hashemite kingdom's program to develop nuclear energy.

Speaking with Xinhua, ministry spokesman Paul Hirschson said outright that, "We have no objection and we've never had an objectionto such development."

Last week, Abdullah II charged that, "A Jordanian delegation would approach a potential partner, and one week later an Israeli delegation would be there, asking our interlocutors not to support Jordan's nuclear energy bid," according to the Times of Israel.

"No, no, not true," Hirschson said, denying the charge.

"There's no question that we'd like the relevant monitoring by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), and everything else, to verify that everything's above board, but that's standard - I mean, the Americans are subject to that as well," Hirschson noted.

Abdallah told reporters that, "When we started going down the road of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, we approached some highly responsible countries to work with us. And pretty soon we realized that Israel was putting pressure on those countries to disrupt any cooperation with us."

However, on Wednesday, the head of Israel's Israel Atomic Energy Commission, Director-General Shaul Chorev, told the IAEA in Vienna that Israel was not opposed to such development by Israel's eastern neighbour for electricity generation and water desalination.

Chorev pointed to what he said was Israel's assistance in providing geological data for mining uranium deposits.

"With regards to Jordan's civilian nuclear program I wish to emphasize that Israel supports the use of nuclear power by its neighbours, to meet their energy and water needs," Chorev said, according to The Jerusalem Post.

"Israel believes in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy in the Middle East, as long as states fully honor their international nonproliferation obligations," Chorev said.