The leaked private comments by Barak cast doubt on how much Israel
is willing or able to reconcile with Turks outraged at its navy’s killing of
nine of their compatriots aboard an aid ship that tried to run the Gaza Strip
blockade on May 31.
Until relations soured, Turkey had been the Muslim power
closest to the Jewish state, a friendship largely based on military cooperation
and intelligence sharing.
In a closed-door briefing to Israeli community leaders at a
kibbutz outside Jerusalem on July 25, Barak still described Turkey as a “friend
and major strategic ally.” But he called Hakan Fidan, the new head of its
National Intelligence Organization, 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,” Israel’s Army Radio quoted him as saying in the speech. The
Defense Ministry declined comment. But a person who attended the kibbutz event
told Reuters on Monday that the Army Radio report was accurate, and that Barak
had been speaking in the context of past Israeli-Turkish intelligence
cooperation.
Appointed in May, Fidan was previously a foreign policy
adviser to Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. Turkish sources say Fidan has also
helped to mediate between the West and Iran over Tehran’s disputed nuclear
program.
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.
Ali Nihat Ozcan of the Ankara-based TEPAV think tank saw in
Barak’s remarks an effort at “psychological pressure” on Turkey.
“It’s understood that there is a paranoia that Turkey could
share with Iran what it could have shared with Israel before, regarding Iran’s
nuclear program,” he said, noting that Fidan formerly represented Turkey on the
board of governors of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency watchdog.
Ankara has not commented publicly on the state of its
intelligence ties with Israel. But some Turkish commentators have looked askance
at media reports of Israeli collaboration with Kurds in northern Iraq, given
their suspected ties to Turkey’s separatist Kurdish guerrilla group PKK.
By contrast, Israel’s Mossad spy agency was widely reputed
to have helped Turkey to capture PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan in 1999, though
then-Mossad chief Efraim Halevy denied involvement.
There has also been ridicule in Turkey of an Israeli inquiry
into the interception of the pro-Palestinian aid ship Mavi Marmara, which
faulted military intelligence for not anticipating passengers’ resistance to
the naval boarding party.
Marines shot dead nine Turks in the ensuing fighting, an
action Israel has justified as self-defense. Turkey, which withdrew its
ambassador and suspended joint military exercises with Israel in protest at the
bloodshed, has demanded an apology and a wider international investigation.
