WarSclerotic

The Prime Minister’s Office on Thursday declined to comment on a Washington Post report suggesting that Turkey had exposed an Israeli spy ring in Iran. But Strategic Affairs and Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz remarked that, in general, “relations with Turkey have not been on track in recent years, and I hope that in the future we can restore ties, for the benefit of all sides.”

Meanwhile, an Israeli official said Thursday that if the report was true, it had to do with the strained ties between Turkey and the National Kurdish Nationalist Movement. The Turks and the Iranians have been working in tandem for some time against the Kurdish nationalists both in Turkey and in Iran.

Former Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon urged the government to file an official complaint with NATO and demand Turkey’s removal from the organization over the incident.

“The revelation of intelligence cooperation between Turkey and Iran against the West in general, and specifically against Israel, proves once again that [Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip] Erdogan is an extreme Islamist who behaves like an enemy,” Ayalon said Thursday. “Israel and the U.S. must reassess their policy toward Turkey, especially in light of Turkey’s covert support of Iran, which includes the violation of sanctions and open Turkish support for terror organizations like Hamas in Gaza and al-Qaida in Syria.”

Also Thursday, former Mossad chief Danny Yatom told Army Radio that if the reports were true, Israel needed to warn the West.

“In my opinion, Israel needs to talk to the U.S. and to other countries that have friendly relations with Turkey. No Western intelligence organization will cooperate with Turkey for fear that they will do the same thing to them,” Yatom said. He added that “it is not conceivable that this was done without Erdogan’s knowledge.”

Earlier Thursday, a Washington Post columnist reported that Turkey deliberately blew the cover of an Israeli spy ring working inside Iran in early 2012, dealing a significant blow to Israeli intelligence gathering.

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.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu openly denied the report, Israel Radio reported Friday.

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 aboard a protest ship 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 complicating 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 traveled to Turkey to meet Israeli spies.

Iran has long accused Israel of spying on it soil and of killing several Iranian nuclear scientists, most recently in January 2012.

The Washington Post allegation angered officials in Ankara, already on the defensive after a Wall Street Journal article last week suggested that Washington was concerned that 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 ostensibly moderate President Hasan Rouhani.

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

“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.”