UTJ denies reports of significant coalition talks progress with Eisenkot bloc

United Torah Judaism chairman MK Yaakov Asher denies reports of significant progress in coalition-building talks with Yashar chairman Gadi Eisenkot’s bloc, after a senior UTJ figure told Channel 12 that contacts were taking place daily and advancing.

“Reports of ‘dramatic’ progress in the talks and of ‘exchanges of [agreement] drafts’ with us are entirely baseless,” Asher says in comments carried by Hebrew media. “Advice coming from other parties is also based on the same false and biased reports,” he adds, seemingly in reference to Shas’s reported opposition to UTJ’s progress with Eisenkot’s bloc.

Eisenkot reportedly met secretly with Asher last week, and Asher also met with Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman, which he downplays as Liberman simply “running out of coffee.”

“Talks and meetings with figures in the political system are a natural part of this period, and we do not intend to confirm or deny the repeated questions every day about this or that meeting,” Asher says.

UTJ has reportedly formed a negotiating team representing both factions of the party to conduct talks with other parties and both blocs. Until it begins formal negotiations, “all the conversations are just feelers,” a party source says, adding that talks covered “general principles” and “did not go into details.”