Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has strongly rejected a New York Times (NYT) report claiming Israel’s Mossad tried to recruit him and that he is currently under house arrest.

His office dismissed all the claims as completely false, according to Turkish news agency Anadolu.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, Ahmadinejad’s office said the NYT had published fabricated reports to mislead the public and fuel divisions within Iran.

“We categorically reject all the completely false allegations spread by the New York Times,” the statement said.

The office also denied that Ahmadinejad is under house arrest, calling the claim baseless and part of an attempt to lend credibility to the newspaper’s other unfounded assertions.

A day earlier, the NYT had reported that Mossad secretly contacted Ahmadinejad over the past several years in an effort to persuade him to cooperate with Israel. The report claimed Israel viewed him as a potential candidate for Iran’s future leadership.

According to the newspaper, the alleged plan was part of a broader Israeli strategy for regime change in Iran, launched after strikes on the country’s top leadership.

Citing US officials, the report claimed Israel secretly covered Ahmadinejad’s housing and travel expenses, and that Israeli operatives met him multiple times during his trips abroad, particularly in Budapest.

The NYT further claimed that in late February, during the early days of US-Israel tensions with Iran, Israeli intelligence attempted to extract Ahmadinejad from Tehran to install him in power after a government overthrow.

The report said an Israeli airstrike on February 28 hit Ahmadinejad’s compound, damaging a building used by his guards and his armoured vehicle.

Citing four senior Iranian officials, the newspaper claimed a black Peugeot arrived at the scene after the strike, took Ahmadinejad away, and moved him to a secret safe location inside Iran.

The report also alleged, citing US and Iranian officials, that the driver and his associates were Mossad operatives.

Neither the Iranian government nor Israel has issued an official response to the claims, while Ahmadinejad’s office has dismissed them as baseless.

Ahmadinejad served as Iran’s president from 2005 to 2013.

He appeared in public last week for the first time since the war between the US, Israel and Iran, attending the funeral of Iran’s late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.