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Ex-spy boss rails against Turkey’s reported betrayal of Mossad | The Times of Israel.

Danny Yatom, former Mossad head, intimates Tehran may have executed Iranian assets whose cover was blown by Ankara

By Times of Israel staff October 17, 2013, 1:58 pm

Ex-Mossad chief Danny Yatom (photo credit: Olivier Fitoussi /Flash90)

While Israel issued no official response to a Washington Post report Thursday that claimed Turkey had deliberately exposed a network of up to 10 Iranians working for the Mossad, a former Israeli spy chief fumed that, if accurate, the incident constituted a grave betrayal by Turkey of years of unwritten understandings between the two intelligence communities.

Such a betrayal by the Turkish intelligence community would be “something that’s absolutely not done,” Yatom told Israel Radio. “It’s against all the rules which have existed for many years, the unwritten rules concerning cooperation between intelligence organizations that reveal sensitive information to one another and trust one another not to use that information to harm whoever gave it to them.”

According to “knowledgeable sources” cited by the Washington Post Thursday, the “deliberate compromise” of Israel’s agents by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government in early 2012 constituted a “significant” loss of intelligence and can be interpreted as “an effort to slap the Israelis.”

Ankara disclosed to Tehran’s intelligence organization the identities of “up to 10 Iranians who had been meeting inside Turkey with their Mossad case officers,” the paper’s senior columnist David Ignatius wrote.

Danny Yatom, who headed the Mossad from 1999 to 2001, seemed to intimate in an Israel Radio interview Thursday afternoon that Iran may have executed the blown Iranian assets who worked for Mossad.

The former Israeli spy chief’s insinuation could not be independently confirmed, but Iranian state media in April 2012 reported the arrest of 15 Israeli agents in Iran and the discovery of an Israeli spy based in an unnamed neighboring country.

A few months after the May 2010 Mavi Marmara incident that sparked the deterioration of Israel-Turkey ties, then-defense minister Ehud Barak expressed concern that Ankara might divulge Israeli intelligence secrets to Tehran.

“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,” Army Radio quoted Barak saying in August 2010.

Erdogan’s adviser, Mustafa Varank, reacted to the report Thursday via Twitter by calling the Washington Post column “psychological warfare,” Turkish Hurriyet Daily News reported. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office refused to comment on Ignatius’s report.

Yatom also said that if the report was accurate Turkey “may well have endangered [Israeli] Mossad personnel as well.”

Yatom named the head of Turkey’s Milli Istihbarat Teskilati (MIT) intelligence service, Hakan Fidan, as central to what he called the ongoing deterioration of close ties between Israeli and Turkish intelligence. He said that Hakan Fidan was “very pro-Iranian,” and that he would not imagine relations between Israeli and Turkish intelligence improving so long as Hakan Fidan remained in his position.

According to the Washington Post report, Israeli officials suspected Fidan due to his friendly ties with Iran. The paper noted that the MIT’s “aggressive surveillance inside its borders” would have enabled it to gather information on Israel’s dealings with Iranian assets in Turkey.

Yatom said the Mossad would now presumably be trying to evaluate and understand the damage done and to prevent further damage — this, he stressed, assuming that the report was true.

Israeli officials by and large declined commenting on the report of Iranian assets blown by Turkey. Deputy Foreign Minister Zeev Elkin told Israel Radio that relations with Turkey were “very complex” and that Ankara chose “to seek the leadership of our region, the Middle East, and they chose the convenient anti-Israeli card in order to build up leadership.”

Amid talks on Iran’s nuclear program, major IAF exercise enters second week | JPost | Israel News.

( The public nature of these exercises makes me think that if Israel hits Iran, it WON’T be with these jets… – JW )

Drill began with simulated long-distance strike to prepare squadrons for possibility of attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities.

David Ignatius: Turkey blows Israel’s cover for Iranian spy ring – The Washington Post.

By David Ignatius, Thursday, October 17, 2:41 AM

The Turkish-Israeli relationship became so poisonous early last year that the Turkish government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is said to have disclosed to Iranian intelligence the identities of up to 10 Iranians who had been meeting inside Turkey with their Mossad case officers.

Knowledgeable sources describe the Turkish action as a “significant” loss of intelligence and “an effort to slap the Israelis.” The incident, disclosed here for the first time, illustrates the bitter, multi-dimensional spy wars that lie behind the current negotiations between Iran and Western nations over a deal to limit the Iranian nuclear program. A Turkish Embassy spokesman had no comment.

Israeli anger at the deliberate compromise of its agents may help explain why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu became so entrenched in his refusal to apologize to Erdogan about the May 2010 Gaza flotilla incident . In that confrontation at sea, Israeli commandos boarded a Turkish-organized convoy of ships carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza. Nine Turks were killed.

Netanyahu finally apologized to Erdogan by phone in March after President Obama negotiated a compromise formula. But for more than a year before that, the Israeli leader had resisted entreaties from Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to heal the feud.

Top Israeli officials believe that, despite the apology, the severe strain with Erdogan continues. The Turkish intelligence chief, Hakan Fidan, is also suspect in Israel because of what are seen as friendly links with Tehran; several years ago, Israeli intelligence officers are said to have described him facetiously to CIA officials as “the MOIS station chief in Ankara,” a reference to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security. The United States continued to deal with Fidan on sensitive matters, however.

Though U.S. officials regarded exposure of the Israeli network as an unfortunate intelligence loss, they didn’t protest directly to Turkish officials. Instead, Turkish-American relations continued warming last year to the point that Erdogan was among Obama’s key confidants. This practice of separating intelligence issues from broader policymaking is said to be a long-standing U.S. approach.

U.S. officials were never sure whether the Turkish disclosure was done in retaliation for the flotilla incident or was part of a broader deterioration in Turkish-Israeli relations.

Israeli intelligence had apparently run part of its Iranian spy network through Turkey, which has relatively easy movement back and forth across its border with Iran. The Turkish intelligence service, known as the Milli Istihbarat Teskilati, or MIT, conducts aggressive surveillance inside its borders, so it had the resources to monitor Israeli-Iranian covert meetings.

U.S. officials assessed the incident as a problem of misplaced trust, rather than bad tradecraft. They reasoned that the Mossad, after more than 50 years of cooperation with Turkey, never imagined the Turks would “shop” Israeli agents to a hostile power, in the words of one source. But Erdogan presented a unique challenge, as he moved in 2009 to champion the Palestinian cause and, in various ways, steered Ankara away from what had been, in effect, a secret partnership with Jerusalem.

The Israeli-Turkish intelligence alliance was launched in a secret meeting in August 1958 in Ankara between David Ben-Gurion, then Israel’s prime minister, and Adnan Menderes, then Turkey’s prime minister. “The concrete result was a formal but top-secret agreement for comprehensive cooperation” between the Mossad and Turkish intelligence, wrote Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman in their 2012 book, “Spies Against Armageddon.”

The groundwork had been laid secretly by Reuven Shiloah, the founding director of the Mossad, as part of what he called a “peripheral alliance strategy.” Through that partnership, Israelis provided training in espionage to the Turks and, ironically, also to Iranians under the shah’s government, which was toppled in 1979.

Fidan, the Turkish spy chief, is a key Erdogan adviser. He became head of the MIT in 2010 after serving as a noncommissioned officer in the Turkish army and gaining a bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland and a doctorate in Ankara. After Fidan took over the Turkish service, “he rattled Turkey’s allies by allegedly passing to Iran sensitive intelligence collected by the U.S. and Israel,” according to a recent profile in the Wall Street Journal. The Journal also noted U.S. fears that Fidan was arming jihadist rebels in Syria.

The Netanyahu-Erdogan quarrel, with its overlay of intelligence thrust and parry, is an example of the kaleidoscopic changes that may be ahead in the Middle East. The United States, Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are all exploring new alliances and struggling to find a new equilibrium — overtly and covertly.

Read more from David Ignatius’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.

Read more about this issue: David Ignatius: Rouhani sees a nuclear deal in 3 months Soli Ozel: The protests in Turkey won’t be the last Fareed Zakaria: Israel dominates the new Middle East Sonet Cagaptay: Syria becomes a wedge between the United States and Turkey Dani Rodrik: Turkey’s miscarriage of justice

© The Washington Post Company

How Turkey shopped Mossad spies to Iran: A story leaked by Washington to caution Netanyahu.

Turkey’s intelligence chief Hakan Fidan at the White House

Early last year, the Erdogan government blew the cover of up to 10 Israel agents in Iran who had been meeting inside Turkey with their Mossad case officers. This story was published in The Washington Post, by David Ignatius, who has excellent connections in the US capital, Thursday, Oct. 17 – the day after a two-day conference in Geneva between six world powers with Iran on its nuclear program. A chorus of Western powers led by the US hailed the event as “substantive” and “forward-looking.”

But on the quiet, the WP story was directed against Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as a caution to him to drop his “lone voice” posture against trusting Iran to abandon its nuclear weapon aspirations. Instead, he must look forward and start getting used to the “new Middle East” and role Barack Obama has assigned for Iran. If he persists in his defiant attitude, Israeli intelligence may face more debacles like the Turkish betrayal.

The WP story reveals from “knowledgeable sources” that Israeli intelligence had apparently run part of its Iranian spy network through Turkey, which has relatively easy movement back and forth across its border with Iran. “The Turkish intelligence service MIT had the resources to monitor those meetings, but after 50 years of cooperation with Turkey, Israel never imagined the Turks would “shop” Israeli agents to a hostile power.

Ignatius reports:  “US officials assessed the incident as a problem of misplaced trust, rather than bad tradecraft.”

Still, the article presents Israel’s Mossad in an unflattering light, claiming that Israeli intelligence officers in 2010  complained to the CIA that Hakan Fidan Turkish intelligence chief was in fact “the MOIS station chief in Ankara.” MOIS is Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security.
He describes “Israeli anger at the deliberate compromise of its agents,” which he said may help explain why Netanyahu “became entrenched in his refusal to apologize to Erdogan about the May 2010 Gaza flotilla incident” in which nine Turks were killed. He did apologize later but the “severe strain with Erdogan continues.”
debkafile’s intelligence sources underline five lessons from the WP article and its timing:

1. The US never protested to Ankara about over its deliberate compromise of the Israeli network because President Barack Obama was intent on cultivating Prime Minister Erdogan as a key Muslim ally.

2. Washington wasn’t sure of Turkey’s motives. According to one theory, Erdogan was settling a score with Israel for its commando raid on the Turkish Mavis Marmama which was leading the flotilla to Gaza with pro-Palestinian activists.

3. Netanyahu’s apology, forced on him by Obama, did not ease strained relations with Ankara.

4. Although US officials treated the exposure of the Israeli network as an unfortunate intelligence loss, they continue to work with Hakan Fidan on sensitive issues despite his suspected collaboration with Tehran.
“This practice of separating intelligence issues from broader policymaking is said to be a long-standing US approach,” the writer reported.

5. “Kaleidoscopic changes” lie ahead of the Middle East, says Ignatius, and countries like Israel, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are searching – openly as well as covertly – for alliances in the constantly changing Middle East.

The sixth lesson appears between the lines of the article. It is that if Netanyahu wants to escape more punishment over his bad relations with Erdogan and attitude on Iran, he must change his approach and acclimatize to the new Middle East, however cruel and cold, in which the US and Iran are beginning to cooperate.
The same message applies equally to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, both of which actively challenge Barack Obama’s approach to the region.

As usual in the covert world of intelligence and espionage, the WP story has another dimension. It is also the answer to a Wall Street Journal piece of Oct. 10 entitled “Turkey’s Spymaster Plots Own Course on Syria,” which quotes former US Ambassador to Turkey James Jeffrey as saying, “Hakan Fidan is the face of the new Middle East.”
He accused Fidan of working against US policy by helping to supply arms and ammunition to the al-Qaeda-linked jihadis fighting with Syrian rebels. Jeffrey describes Fidan as one of three spy chiefs acting to shape the “new Middle East.”  The other two are Prince Bandar bin Sultan, director of Saudi General Intelligence, and Gen. Qassem Soleimani, head of the notorious Iranian Al Qods Brigades intelligence and terror network.

Mossad chief Tomer Pardo did not make the list.

Is Israel serious about striking Iran – Foxnews – YouTube.

Retired United States Navy Admiral Timothy Keating on what Benjamin Netanyahu strategy is against Tehran.

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Beyond sanctions: Congress eyes alternatives to push Tehran | The Times of Israel.

With the Senate pressing for more sanctions already passed by the House, military force authorization could be the next step

By Rebecca Shimoni Stoil October 17, 2013, 7:46 am

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has advocated preparing an authorization of military force against Iran. (photo credit: AP/Ann Heisenfelt)

Even if the administration manages to put the kibosh on a push for harsher sanctions against Iran in advance of the next round of nuclear negotiations, a number of Republican Congressmen are already exploring new ways to maintain pressure on Tehran.

With the budget battle soon behind them, some of Capitol Hill’s most vocal legislators have open proposals that could cast a pall over the administration’s cautious optimism.

A hawkish bill that Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) described in September as an “authorization of military force in Iran” was supposed to be introduced last Friday, but since disappeared into the legislative haze surrounding the budget.

The bill, entitled the “United States-Iran Nuclear Negotiations Act” was supposed to be introduced as leverage in advance of the first round of talks. It included a section that would impose a number of preconditions on any formal agreement with Iran and also mandated that as part of any agreement, Iran would have to cease support for terrorist groups, recognize Israel’s sovereignty, and to display “peaceful foreign policy conduct and actions.”

The Franks bill also includes additional sanctions, but it is most significant for its sponsor’s belief that an Authorization of Military Force (AUMF) is the next logical step for American bargaining.

“If we authorize the use of military force now, it will strengthen the president’s hand in in any potential talks with Iran,” Franks said in September when the Tehran-Washington thaw was in its initial stages. “If we do not, the president may rely on reactionary efforts, much like the debacle in Syria. For the sake of our national security, the security of our allies, and global stability, more generally, we must have every option available in advance.”

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is a powerful Senate hawk with similar ideas.

“I do believe without the threat of credible military force by us, the Iranians are going to just slow-walk, so I’m trying to create the dynamic that there is bipartisan support for continued diplomacy, sanctions and the use of force as a last resort,” he told reporters last month.

Graham said that “it is important” for President Barack Obama to “have [an AUMF] in his back pocket if negotiations get serious.”

The AUMF is not the only way – beyond sanctions – that Congress can curb administration enthusiasm.

Coming off of the pinnacle – or debacle – of his political career, depending on who is asked, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) can also begin to push his draft of a resolution to place conditions on any meeting between Obama and Rouhani.

The resolution, which has been referred to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, lists a series of hurdles that Iran must jump before a bilateral top-level meeting can occur. Like the Franks legislation, the Cruz resolution would demand that Rouhani first “affirms the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state” and that Iran “immediately and without conditions releases all United States citizens unjustly detained as prisoners of conscience.”

The resolution does not have any cosponsors, and, as such, seems an unlikely bet to advance. Cruz, however, has proven in recent weeks what many had already believed – that he can drive a one-man performance through the Senate.

Congress can also keep up pressure on Iran by re-focusing the debate.

In the past month, it has become increasingly popular in Congress to raise awareness and push Iran on the issue of two American citizens currently imprisoned in Iran – evangelical pastor Saeed Abedini and alleged US spy Amir Hekmati.

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Congressman Dan Kildee (D-MI), Robert Pittenger (R-NC) and Raul Labrador (R-ID) have all advocated for the release of Iran’s US prisoners, and just before the shutdown, Labrador called on the US to halt all diplomacy with Iran until Abedini is released.

Report: Turkey blows cover of Israeli spy network in Iran | JPost | Israel News.

Ankara decided to disclose identity of at least 10 Iranians spying for Israel to Tehran, Washington Post columnist writes; sources say Turkish action was “significant” loss of intelligence to Israel.