Spymaster turned top diplomat to pilot Turkish-Israeli rapprochement

Following Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s victory in the presidential elections in Turkey, the former director of the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT), Hakan Fidan, assumed the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs, replacing Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu.

During his tenure as the MIT director Fidan has made quite a name for himself. Since the 2010s Israeli-Turkish diplomatic relations have come to a complete halt, but recently the process of mending started, which many believe Fidan directly influenced. The burning question is whether Fidan’s plans as Foreign Minister include further efforts to bring Israel and Turkey closer in the Middle Eastern and global arenas.

To foresee the future of Turkish foreign policy under Fidan, one must understand the man himself. The best way to describe Fidan is as a pragmatic character and a proponent of realpolitik, which is a trait of former spymasters.

Fidan has, in the past, been vocal about the benefits of aligning with Iran and Russia instead of the US-Israel alliance in the Middle East, as German media outlet Der Spiegel noted in their 2018 article on the man. The Der Spiegel article also mentioned Fidan using his knowledge of the Jamal Khashoggi murder by the Saudis to pressure and embarrass Saudi Arabia on the global arena, effectively dealing a blow to another one of Turkey’s competitors for the attention and allegiance of Middle Eastern countries.

But if we dig deeper, we find that before the Arab Spring, Fidan had frequent meetings with U.S. Secret Services, including the CIA and the NSA. There are those who claim that this acquaintance with those organizations and their methods made him prefer avoiding more thorough cooperation with the United States.

The Middle East is a battleground of several regional powers engaged in struggles of different backgrounds for influence over as many neighboring governments as possible. Among the runner-ups are Saudi Arabia (and Egypt to an extent), Turkey, Iran, and Israel. Fidan’s policies and directives during his time in the intelligence service were, understandably, ways to improve Turkey’s standing in the region.

Back in early 2020, just after the assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, the leader of the infamous IRGC Qods Force, several news outlets, such as the Israeli Makor Rishon, published pieces on Fidan’s ties and meetings with Soleimani and why he should be the next target to eliminate as he could prove to be a threat.

Moreover, Erdogan participated in three-way meetings with the leaders of Iran and Russia, the latest of which was in July 2022. These meetings were to, in a way, divide the Middle East into the spheres of influence of the participating countries. Yet only a few months after the latest one, the Israeli-Turkish rapprochement process began, indicating Turkey was out looking for different allies in the Middle East.

Furthermore, with the advent of the war in Ukraine, and the military cooperation Turkey and Ukraine have maintained, Ankara ended up in a position to mediate agreements between Moscow, with which it has been in close contact since the Russian intervention in Syria, and Kyiv, acting as a guarantor of the Ukrainian-Russian grain deal. Fidan’s roles in these events are, naturally, unknown, since he was still the Director of MIT, however, one may assume that he was in the know and perhaps even active in urging Erdogan to approach Jerusalem to begin talks once again.

Despite Fidan’s past transgressions against the Western-aligned countries in the region, such as occasional siding with Iran, it is clear that in recent years he has, in fact, changed his approach entirely. This likely happened due to realizing that the Iran-Russia axis in the Middle East is not the most beneficial partner of Turkey and also poses a threat to one of Turkey's important allies - Azerbaijan.

The latter is seen as a key to Erdogan’s “Old-New” policy of creating a Turkic coalition. This doctrine recently succeeded in his failed efforts to replace Saudi Arabia and Egypt as the leaders of the Sunni Muslim league. The Turkic world, which mainly consists of former Soviet republics, hinges on the mediation of Azerbaijan. 

Speaking of Azerbaijan, it is one of the main reasons why Turkey and Israel were set on a course of normalization of relations in the 2020s. After all, Azerbaijan is a close ally of both and its leadership postulated that “all our allies should be friends.”

It just so happens that in the 2020 war, Azerbaijan fought against Armenia and the Armenian-controlled separatist enclave of Karabakh, Azerbaijan was supported by both Israel and Turkey. Following the Azerbaijani victory and the acknowledgment of both Israeli and Turkish support in late 2020 it is simple to piece together reasons for Turkey and Israel’s search for a way to restart diplomatic relations.

In September 2022, following a speech by then-Israeli Prime Minister, Yair Lapid, at the UN General Assembly, the leaders of Israel and Turkey met with their entourages on the sidelines to discuss the prospect of renewing diplomatic ties once more. Following the talks, several important milestones were achieved - for one, the mutual return of ambassadors.

Over the years, Fidan’s position as Directors of MIT allowed him to form close ties with Israeli intelligence services and officials, slowly building mutual trust and hopes for cooperation for security and stability in the region. One may bring up the detention of suspects in Turkey on suspicions of spying on Palestinian expats in December 2022 as a contradictory argument. But there were also other events that clearly show that that was an insignificant incident. 

For example, in November 2022 a secret partnership agreement was signed between the Israeli and Turkish secret services. According to the IntelligenceOnline journal, it contained eight clauses. One touches on the presence in Turkey of Israel's domestic intelligence service, Shabak, to ensure the protection of the Israeli embassy and consulate, and increase cooperation in the fields of counter-terrorism and counter-espionage. It follows that Palestinian nationals residing in Turkey may therefore be subject to increased surveillance by the MIT. The Mossad, however, has pledged never to deploy its Kidon unit, responsible for targeted eliminations, against Palestinians on Turkish soil.

The agreement came after a joint operation between the Israeli and Turkish secret services which foiled an attempt in June 2022 by the Iranian IRGC to kill Israeli tourists in Istanbul. According to Turkish sources, the IRGC made a mistake when it tried to hire several ethnic Azerbaijanis living in Turkey as an assisting force. They have alarmed both Azerbaijani and Turkish security services.   

It is crucial to remember that Fidan is Erdogan’s man, acting as his advisor and following the directives set by him. Knowing this, and knowing Erdogan’s plans and hopes to have Turkey be a self-sufficient regional power within the Middle East and Asia in general, it is easy to dissect the needs of Turkey to maintain working relations with the rest of the significant countries in the region, such as Iran and Israel.

Fidan’s ties with Iran are understandable; even more so, the recent emphasis on getting closer to Israel means that Fidan’s directive as Minister of Foreign Affairs is to utilize the knowledge and trust gained during his tenure at the MIT to his advantage in pursuing the best possible route to building ties with the Jewish state while maintaining Turkey’s geopolitical interests in mind.

It is important to note that lately, Turkey and the U.S. have not been on good terms, despite both being NATO members. Fidan might hope to gain additional leverage through the warming up of relations between Ankara and Jerusalem. 

To summarize, Fidan is seen as a reasonable avenue of approach regarding Turkish diplomacy, and certainly one that the Israeli intelligence services are already familiar with.