Paper says Turkish FM leaked Mossad, Kurd story
By Zvi Bar'el
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/443137.html
ANKARA - Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul is the source of the leak to New Yorker correspondent Seymour Hersh that dozens of Israeli Mossad agents are ostensibly in northern Iraq. The reliable Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet yesterday stated that Gul, along with two advisers and a spokesman, had a breakfast meeting with Hersh on May 27, on which occasion he gave the information to Hersh.
Official Turkish spokesmen denied the report in Jumhurriyet, dismissing it as "a report by an opposition paper," but sources at the paper insisted the report is "correct, verified, and approved by highly informed sources."
Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani categorically denied Hersh's report on Wednesday.
Turkish sources yesterday confirmed to Haaretz that despite the denials, official Turkey still does not completely believe that no Israeli agents are present in northern Iraq. According to these sources, Israeli and Turkish officials held talks over the past year regarding the possibility of cooperation with the Kurds. The Israeli side indeed declared that any cooperation of this kind would only occur in coordination with Turkey and not behind its back. However, "Turkish sensitivity to the possibility that Israel would exploit an opportunity prevents the Turkish government from relaxing. Perhaps that is why, if it was indeed Gul who passed on the information, his sole purpose was to nip the idea in the bud," they said.
In any event, Israel has made it clear to Turkey that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided not to open a channel of cooperation with the Kurds. For now, that decision is blocking proposals submitted by Israeli intelligence officials to Sharon to try to reestablish the connection with the Kurds.