JERUSALEM – Israel’s defence minister has voiced concern that once-stalwart ally Turkey could share Israeli intelligence secrets with Iran, revealing a deep distrust as Ankara’s regional interests shift.
The leaked comments by Ehud Barak cast doubt on how much Israel is willing or able to reconcile with Turks, still outraged at its navy’s killing of nine of their compatriots aboard the MV Mavi Marmara on May 31st.
Until relations soured, Turkey had been the Muslim power closest to the Jewish state, a friendship largely based on military co- operation and intelligence sharing.
In a closed-door briefing to activists aligned with his Labour Party at a kibbutz near Jerusalem on July 25th, Mr Barak still called Turkey a “friend and major strategic ally” of Israel.
However, he described Hakan Fidan, the new head of its National Intelligence Organisation, as a “friend of 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, let’s say, is quite disturbing,” he said.
Appointed in May, Mr Fidan was previously a foreign policy adviser to prime minister Tayyip Erdogan, whose AK Party has roots in political Islam and has often censured Israel.
Political sources in Ankara said Mr Fidan, a former envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, was also involved in a Turkish- and Brazilian-brokered compromise proposal – received coolly in the West – to curb Iran’s controversial uranium enrichment.
Israel has hinted at last-ditch military strikes to deny the Iranians the means to make a nuclear bomb – a threat boosted by its 2007 air raid on an alleged atomic reactor in Syria, during which Israeli warplanes briefly flew over Turkish territory.
The Erdogan government was angered by that incursion and has pointed to Israel’s own assumed nuclear arsenal. Such positions have rallied Arabs and Muslims around Turkey, a Nato member. – (Reuters)