The Dark Side of Turkey's Intelligence Community

Michael Rubin

Security, Middle East

Turkey and its National Intelligence Organization appear to abuse the intelligence and diplomatic process by seeking to insert flawed and false intelligence in order to constrain and subvert U.S. diplomatic options.

Last week the U.S. Embassy in Turkey released a statement that said Washington had reached an agreement to implement “initial measures to address Turkey’s security concerns” and to establish a “peace corridor” inside Kurdish-controlled portions of Syria. The agreement aims to diffuse a crisis which saw the Turkish military mobilize along the Syrian border and threaten to occupy northern Syria, ostensibly to fight terrorism. The details of the agreement have not been made public.

Turkish officials have long complained that the U.S. partnership with Syrian Kurds is a betrayal of decades of U.S.-Turkey partnership. The People’s Protection Units (YPG) and associated militias, Turkish diplomats argue, are affiliated with the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), a U.S.-designated terror group. Turkish authorities have repeatedly told their American counterparts that “you can’t fight one terrorist group with another.”

It is true that there are links between the PKK and YPG, though the two are not interchangeable. It is also true that the PKK is a U.S.-designated terrorist group, but Turkish authorities are dead wrong to suggest equivalency between the YPG in Syria and the Islamic State. Indeed, the Turkish insistence is ironic given that the United States only began partnering with the YPG when evidence became overwhelming that Turkey’s political leadership—including President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s own family—and intelligence services actively supported and profited from the Islamic State and other Al Qaeda-affiliated groups in Syria.