Greater Middle East (bbabo.net), - Turkey has arrested seven people suspected of selling intelligence to the Israeli Mossad, the Israeli channel i24 News reported, citing the Turkish Anadolu Agency.
The ongoing investigation is the result of a joint effort between Turkey's national intelligence agency (MIT) and Istanbul's counter-terrorism police, the channel noted.
One of those arrested is a former high-ranking Turkish police officer who currently works as a private detective. According to Israeli media, he is also a security analyst who has appeared regularly on Turkish news television.
According to reports, the detective was recruited by an Israeli operative and was initially assigned to simple espionage operations. Later, according to Anadolu Agency, he flew to Serbia “for training.” According to reports, it tracked targets and installed beacons on vehicles to obtain real-time information about their location.
According to MIT, the “agent” received payments in cryptocurrency. No other details about his activities are reported.
“We will never allow espionage activities to take place within the borders of our country. We will catch them one by one and bring them to justice,” said Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya.
Last month, Turkish authorities arrested four people on charges of similar espionage crimes.
It is noted that while Israel says it will hunt members of Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups abroad, Turkey does not recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization. This position of the Turkish government and the pro-Palestinian sympathies of the population allow many Hamas members to freely enter and leave the country, the Israeli channel i24 News reported.
Let us recall that after the outbreak of hostilities in the Gaza Strip, relations between Turkey and Israel were close to freezing due to President Erdogan’s rejection of Netanyahu’s policy towards the Palestinians. The head of Turkey remains one of the harshest critics of the Israeli prime minister, using vocabulary that is far from the canons of diplomacy. However, at the same time, Türkiye is increasing economic cooperation with Israel.
bbabo.Net