WarSclerotic

A Washington Post report that Ankara has deliberately blew the cover of an Israeli spy ring working inside Iran in early 2012 is an attempt to discredit Turkey by foreign powers uncomfortable with its growing influence in the Middle East, Turkish officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

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.

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 US 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 Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan disclosed to Tehran the identities of 10 Iranians who had traveled to Turkey to meet Israeli spies.

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.”

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.

There was no immediate comment from Israel, but Israeli ministers have accused 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 US allies have been fraught ever since, with military cooperation frozen and mutual distrust scuppering attempts to restore ties, despite efforts by US President Barack Obama to broker a reconciliation.