Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seemed intent on answering all the questions that were put to him in a press conference that he held at Ankara's Esenboga Airport before setting off to Kosovo. Most he answered at relative length, apart from the first, which appeared planned and to which his response was curt. The question concerned US news reports that Turkish intelligence agencies had handed over to Iran Iranian agents who had met with Israeli Mossad officers who allegedly are running a spy network in Anatolia. “May those who have proof of this produce it,” Erdogan said. Yet some observers following his remarks could not help but recall the gripping film, Guests of the Hotel Astoria, a US-Netherlands production written and directed by Reza Allamehzadeh. Released in 1989, the film takes place in the aftermath of the overthrow of Shah Reza Pahlevi and Khomeini's rise to power in Iran, and is set entirely in Istanbul, in the modest “Hotel Astoria” where several Iranian families had taken up residence. The film probes the tragic tales of these refugees whose lives were at risk due to bargains struck between some Turkish security officials and their counterparts in the security agencies of the regime of the mullahs. According to these deals, Iranian Revolutionary Guard officers were allowed to arrest opponents to the Islamic Republic who had fled to Turkey at the price of $100 per head. In spite of the enormous ideological gulf between the Turkish secular system and the Iranian theocracy, interests — even of the narrowest sort — prevailed. Today, three decades later, history repeats itself with different characters and against a different political/ideological backdrop. In this case, Erdogan is reported to have given the Iranian government, via his intelligence chief Hakan Fidan, information on meetings held in Turkey in 2010 and 2011 between Iranian agents and Israeli Mossad officers who had allegedly recruited those agents. Although Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has dismissed the claims that Fidan was involved, he did not explicitly refute the reports. In addition, The Washington Post, which broke the story, cited a former Israeli intelligence chief as saying, “The leaked information may have led to the execution of the spies.” He was referring to an announcement by the Iranian regime in April that it had uncovered a spy network consisting of 15 Mossad agents who had all been brought to the gallows. The domestic, regional and international circumstances surrounding this story are intricately interwoven. That the Turkish intelligence leaks were exposed at this time could cast a dark shadow over the image of the heir to the Ottoman Empire. The reports come at a particularly sensitive moment for Erdogan who has been contending with a bundle of domestic problems that could pose a challenge to his rule and the perpetuation in power of his Justice and Development Party. Regionally, the government in Ankara faces charges of immoral opportunism levelled by neighbours and/or affiliates of the same religion and social value system. These critics point to the Erdogan government's claims of being inspired by the glories of the early caliphs of the Ottoman Empire and its oft-repeated statements that it is avowed to defend the Sunni creed and will not stand idle in the face of conspiracies to spread the Shia creed and to sow sedition and sectarian strife. The international repercussions may be more ominous for the Erdogan government. As Yedioth Ahronoth put it, if it is confirmed that Ankara cooperated with Iranian intelligence, Western intelligence agencies will not share sensitive information with Turkey for fear that it will be transmitted to the Iranians. Yet, the most crucial issue — even if elites in Ankara pretend otherwise — is that the “shopping” of Israeli agents to Iran may damage Turkey's relations with Israel. Although the latter has refrained from comment, officially, the intensive coverage that has been given to this case in the Hebrew-language media is sufficient to cause Ankara worry. Indeed, Israelis had already harboured deep suspicions of Fidan because of what they regarded as his friendly relations with Iran, and they saw his appointment as the head of the Turkish intelligence service, known as the Milli Istihbarat Teskilati (MIT), as a reward to Israel's worst enemy. It appears now that their suspicions have been confirmed. Writing in The Jerusalem Post, Yossi Melman went so far as to describe Turkey's disclosure to Iran of the identities of 10 Iranian agents in a Mossad spy ring — if true — as “the basest act of betrayal imaginable”. Turkey and Israel have been strategic allies for more than 50 years. Their relationship was founded on close cooperation between Mossad and MIT, which began in 1958 and included regular meetings between the officials of these two intelligence agencies. This cooperation proceeded normally even at the tensest moments between the two countries, which is why Mossad never imagined that the Turks would “shop” Israeli agents to a hostile power, as David Ignatius writes in The Washington Post, quoting one source. In the opinion of another Israeli official, if true, the incident is proof that Turkish hostility towards Israel outweighs mutual interests. Or as sources quoted by Ignatius put it, the Turkish action was an attempt by Erdogan “to slap the Israelis”. It was only natural that many observers would wonder why this revelation, or at least suspicions of the leaks, was not aired at the time when the events ostensibly took place, which is to say from mid-2010 through 2011, which coincided with mounting Turkish-Israeli tensions over the Israeli attack against the Mavi Marmara off the coast of Gaza in 2010. Why now, after Binyamin Netanyahu issued a formal apology on that incident through a phone call to his Turkish counterpart Erdogan? Some are of the opinion that the purpose of the report was to embarrass Turkey as a way of pressuring it not to go too far in its demands for compensation for the nine victims of the attack on the Mavi Marmara. Others hold that it was a way to punish Ankara for having signed a deal with China to purchase a missile system. In the midst of such speculations, there have surfaced appeals, generally quite explicit, for the resumption of the close alliance between Turkey and Israel. Ankara has lost much as the consequence of the cooling of its relationship with Tel Aviv, it is argued. Perhaps, too, Erdogan has reached the understanding that certain parties, with the support of the Zionist lobby, were bent on obstructing his path and tarnishing his image in international forums. So, perhaps after this incident warmth will resume and the cold war will draw to a close in that bilateral relationship. What is certain is that the forthcoming days will shed more light on this intriguing puzzle.
