Turkey revealed Israeli spy ring to Iran-report

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Turkey deliberately blew the cover of an Israeli spy ring working inside Iran in early 2012 and dealt a significant blow to Israeli intelligence gathering, according to a report in the Washington Post on Thursday.

Officials in Ankara, speaking on condition they not be named, described the article as part of an attempt to discredit Turkey by foreign powers uncomfortable with its growing influence in the Middle East.

There was no immediate comment from Israel, but Israeli ministers have accused Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of adopting an anti-Israeli stance in recent years to bolster his country's standing in the Muslim world.

Once-strong relations between Turkey and Israel hit the rocks in 2010 after Israeli commandos killed nine Turkish activists seeking to break Israel's long-standing naval blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Relations between the two U.S. allies have been fraught ever since, with military cooperation frozen and mutual distrust scuppering attempts to restore ties, despite efforts by U.S. President Barack Obama to broker a reconciliation.

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius said Israel apparently used to run part of its Iranian spy network out of Turkey, giving Turkish secret services the opportunity to monitor their movements. The paper quoted U.S. officials as saying Israel believed the Turks would never turn on the Jewish state after years of cooperation.

However, it said that in early 2012 Erdogan disclosed to Tehran the identities of 10 Iranians who had travelled to Turkey to meet Israeli spies.

Iran has long accused Israel of spying on it soil and of killing several Iranian nuclear scientists - the last in January 2012. Israel and the West accuse Iran of looking to build an atomic bomb. Tehran denies this.

The Washington Post allegation angered officials in Ankara, already on the defensive after a Wall Street Journal article last week suggested Washington was concerned intelligence chief Hakan Fidan had shared sensitive information with Iran.

A senior official from Erdogan's ruling AK Party said such accusations were part of a deliberate attempt to discredit Turkey and undermine its role in the region following election of Iran's relatively moderate president Hassan Rouhani.

"Turkey is a regional power and there are power centers which are uncomfortable with this ... Stories like these are part of a campaign," the official said, asking not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject.

"It's clear the aim of some is to spoil the moderate political atmosphere after Rouhani's election ... and to neutralize Turkey, which contributes to solving problems in the region and which has a relationship with Iran."

NETWORK BROKEN UP

In April 2012, Iran announced that it had broken up a large Israeli spy network and arrested 15 suspects. It was not clear if this was connected to the alleged Turkish leak.

Deputy Israeli Foreign Minister Zeev Elkin declined to comment on the Washington Post report, but said relations with Turkey were "very complex".

"The Turks made a strategic decision ... to seek the leadership of our region, in the Middle East, and they chose the convenient anti-Israeli card in order to build up leadership," he told Israel Radio.

Obama tried to broker a reconciliation between Turkey and Israel in March, persuading Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to apologize for the 2010 killings.

However, Israeli officials said subsequent attempts to build bridges by agreeing on a deal to compensate families of those killed in the Israeli naval raid had floundered.

"The only thing that we have achieved since March is to show the Americans that Erdogan is not remotely interested in a reconciliation," said an Israeli diplomat, who declined to be named given the sensitivity surrounding the issue.

Shortly after the 2010 incident off the shores of Gaza, the then-Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak voiced concern that Turkey could share Israeli intelligence secrets with Iran.

"There are quite a few secrets of ours (entrusted to Turkey) and the thought that they could become open to the Iranians over the next several months ... is quite disturbing," Israel's Army Radio quoted him as saying in August 2010.

http://news.yahoo.com/turkey-revealed-israeli-spy-ring-iran-report-...

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Permalink Reply by Frances Farmer on October 17, 2013 at 2:49pm

All the world's a stage!
And to think that the US was going into talks with Iran because peace and co-existence suddenly became a priority.
The idiot idealist in me still hopes that there is something- some fact- that could show our leaders that our interests are not mutually inclusive to those of Israel. Meh.

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Permalink Reply by Frances Farmer on October 20, 2013 at 2:32am

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu defended his country’s intelligence chief, Hakan Fidan, Sunday, stating that articles about him in the Amercian media had accused him of nothing more than doing his job, the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported.

A Washington Post report last week claimed that Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MT) had given Iranian intelligence the names of 10 Iranians who had been in contact with the Mossad. The move was ordered by Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, the paper said.

“When you read these articles, Hakan Fidan is accused of establishing an independent intelligence setup and allowed other intelligence bureaus to act in Turkey. In that case, he is accused of doing his job.” Davutoglu told Turkey’s Kanal 7 TV channel.

Davutoglu was speaking a day after the Washington Post reported that Turkey deliberately blew the cover of a Mossad spy ring working inside Iran in early 2012, thereby dealing a significant blow to Israeli intelligence gathering about the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.

According to the report, Fidan is considered “suspicious” in Israeli eyes due his “close” ties with Tehran.

Another article in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend claimed that Fidan supported arming all the rebel elements in Syria.

“We see this media campaign as an attack and there might be an Israeli effort behind it,” a Turkish intelligence source told the Turkish daily Hurriyet.[[ http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/intelligence-chief-accused-by-us-n... ]]

Speaking about the Washington Post article, Davutoglu described the accusations against Fidan as being contradictory. “They are so inconsistent that on one hand they claim that Fidan is close to Iran, but at the same time say he supports groups that are battling the influence of Iran. These are serious accusations. None of our public employees works in the name of another country. Turkey is not a country in which other intelligence units can easily carry out operations.”

MK Avigdor Lieberman reacted by saying that “I am not surprised by Turkey’s accusations that Israel is behind the publication in The Washington Post regarding the ‘handing over of spies to Iran.’ I don’t know if there was such a spy ring. The Turkish accusation that Israel was behind the publication in order to avoid paying compensation to the Mavi Marmara victims proves that Turkey under Erdogan is not interested in improving relations with Israel. For that reason, I hope we all stop fooling ourselves and realize the reality in which we live and the difference between what we desire and what really is.”

On his Facebook page, Lieberman added: “I thought the apology over the Gaza flotilla would only hurt Israel’s standing in the region and play into the hands of radicals in the Middle East, among them Turkey’s Erdogan, a radical Islamist.”

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.553321

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Permalink Reply by Frances Farmer on October 20, 2013 at 2:37am

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu - “I am not saying that the claims are true, but after all, every intelligence agency works for the interest of its own country”

LOOOL!

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/intelligence-chief-accused-by-us-n...