Riyadh  - Saudi Arabia's official news agency on Thursday denied that Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah shook Israel President Shimon Peres' hand last November.

"On the margins of an interfaith dialogue sessions last fall, the king spoke with Israeli President Peres, the first such exchange between Saudi and Israeli leaders," US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns said at a Monday conference on Saudi-US relations in Washington.

"King Abdullah is also the first Saudi leader to meet with the pope," Burns added, according to a transcript provided by the New America Foundation, which organized the conference.

"What Burns said was untrue," Riyadh's official Saudi Press Agency said Thursday, in reference to the meeting with Peres.

The suggestion of a handshake between the two heads of state struck a nerve in Saudi Arabia, where the press at the time had been careful to clarify that there had been no direct encounter between the two at the November conference.

"No handshakes were exchanged between the custodian of the two holy mosques and ... Peres," Saudi Arabia's al-Watan newspaper reported after the UN conference, adding that the two men had been seated separately at dinner.

The intended signal from the Saudi monarch, al-Watan wrote, was that "there will be no direct encounter or shaking of hands until Israel stops abusing the rights of Palestinians and takes real steps toward peace." (dpa)