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Mossad's chief meets with MİT head amid Gezi protests

Türkiye Materials 13 June 2013 09:21 (UTC +04:00)
Mossad's chief meets with MİT head amid Gezi protests
Mossad's chief meets with MİT head amid Gezi protests

Tamir Pardo, director of Israeli national intelligence agency Mossad, has covertly met with Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MİT) head Hakan Fidan in Turkey to discuss the situation in Syria and the ongoing anti-government protests in Turkey, Turkish media reported on Wednesday.

According to reports, Pardo, who is of Turkish and Serbian origin, traveled to Turkey in a private airplane to see Fidan. They reportedly discussed the latest situation in Syria, which has been in turmoil for more than two years, and the impact of Iran on the situation. The two parties shared intelligence ahead of a planned US-Russia-led peace conference in Geneva, which is expected to bring together the Syrian regime and opposition in July for a solution to the conflict in Syria.

The Syrian conflict started in March 2011 with peaceful protests against President Bashar al-Assad's regime. It turned into a civil war after some opposition supporters took up arms to fight a harsh government crackdown on dissent.

Pardo reportedly told Fidan that members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps are engaged in activities against Turkey by Syrian intelligence agency al-Mukhabarat.

The two intelligence officials also discussed the ongoing Gezi Park demonstrations, which began at the end of last month in protest of government plans for the redevelopment of a park in İstanbul's Taksim Square. Demonstrations have spread to other provinces in the country and turned into anti-government protests.

Media reports also said that Pardo wanted to meet with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to talk about the issue but that Erdogan did not respond to the Israeli official.

This high-level visit by Pardo is considered an important one for Turkish-Israeli relations, which were strained until quite recently due to the Israeli naval commandos' raid on the Mavi Marmara, a ship carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza in May of 2010, killing eight Turkish civilians and one Turkish-American.

After the Mavi Marmara incident, Turkey downgraded ties with the Israeli state by withdrawing its ambassador and expelling the Israeli ambassador from Turkey.

In order to end a major crisis in relations between the two former allies, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in March offered an apology to Turkey for the Mavi Marmara incident.

An apology was one of three demands Ankara made of Tel Aviv. The other two were compensation to the families of those killed on the ship and the lifting of the blockade on Gaza.

After Israel offered an official apology for the incident, as a next step, a group of Israeli officials visited Turkey to work out an amount of compensation for the victims' families, and then a Turkish delegation visited Israel.

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