News

Amid the strained relations between Ankara
and Jerusalem, Turkish intelligence has severed its working relations
with the Mossad, the Turkish newspaper Sabah reported on Monday.

The report stated that the two agencies,
which once enjoyed tight cooperation, had stopped exchanging
intelligence and conducting joint operations following a Turkish
government decision on the matter.

The
report's credibility remains unclear, but high-ranking Israeli
officials privy to the matter neither confirmed nor denied it on Monday,
and the prime minister's bureau declined to comment.

In June, Amir Oren reported in Haaretz that
Israeli security officials were deeply concerned by the appointment of
Hakan Fidan to lead Turkey's National Intelligence Organization. Fidan, a
close associate of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is viewed as a
proponent of closer relations between Turkey and Iran.

Meanwhile, Turkey has conditioned its
consent to stationing a NATO missile-defense system on its territory on a
guarantee that no information collected by the system be transferred to
Israel.

Since the American-sponsored plan's original
purpose was to defend NATO countries against the possibility of an
Iranian attack, this means Turkey is essentially demanding that Israel
not be given vital information about Iranian missiles.

The previous U.... >>>