Turkey's Foreign Ministry summoned Israel's ambassador to complain about remarks by Defence Minister Ehud Barak suggesting the head of Turkish intelligence could leak secrets to Iran, officials said on Tuesday. "We expressed our discomfort and dissatisfaction with Barak's statement," a Turkish Foreign Ministry official, who declined to be named, told Reuters a day after Israeli envoy Gaby Levy was called to the ministry in Ankara.
Turkey was also irked by a statement made by Washington's UN envoy Susan Rice, following the opening of a UN probe into the Israeli storming of a Turkish-organised aid flotilla, and summoned the US charge d'affaires to voice its unease. Rice said the UN panel, which will review Israeli and Turkish inquiries, was "not a substitute for those national investigations".
"With these statements, Rice is making an alternative interpretation of the commission formed by the UN," the Turkish Foreign Ministry official told Reuters. "The discomfort felt because of this has been communicated to US officials." Already strained by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's repeated criticism of Israeli policies towards Palestinians, relations between the Jewish State and Turkey plummeted after Israeli marines killed nine Turks aboard an aid ship trying to run a blockade of Gaza on May 31.
Barak's comments, made at a closed-door briefing to party activists on July 25, reflect the climate of mistrust between Israel and its once close, and only Muslim, ally. The Israeli minister described Hakan Fidan, who was appointed head of Turkey's National Intelligence Organisation (MIT) in May, as a "friend of Iran". In part of his speech broadcast by Israeli Army Radio, Barak expressed concern that secrets shared with Turkey "could become open to Iran over the next several months".
Fidan was previously a foreign policy adviser to Erdogan, and had served as Turkey's representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency. He was also involved in talks that Turkey and Brazil held with Iran earlier this year to forge an agreement with the Islamic Republic for a nuclear fuel swap. They had hoped that such a deal would help to defuse a growing crisis over Iran's nuclear programme.