The rush visit of US
intelligence services chief James Clapper in Ankara is perhaps the clearest indication
that the game in our "neighbourhood"
has begun to take a new form.
According press reports from onalert.gr and Today’s Zaman, the head of the
US intelligence services would hold meetings with the General Staff, the
National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and the Foreign Ministry while it was
also mentioned that talks would mainly focus on the planned deployment of a US
radar system as part of a NATO-backed missile defence system in the eastern
Turkish province of Malatya, the fight against the terrorist Kurdistan Workers'
Party (PKK), as well as the developments in the Middle East.
Specifically the report, said that Clapper was in Turkey for a last-pitch by the Obama
administration to avert possible sea and air hostilities erupting between Turkey, Greece,
Cyprus and Israel.
According to the report, the Turkish PM held a meeting with Palestinian
leader Mahmud Abbas in Cairo on September 12 and
assured him that Turkey
would provide him with the financial and political backing his administration
needed. The Israelis accuse Erdogan of taking on a negative stance in relation
to the Palestinian issue, by persuading Abbas to keep an intransigent attitude.
Following statements by Turkish Foreign Minister
Davutoglu's on the X-band radar, the US
official was also authorized to warn Ankara that
if it barred the sharing of information with Israel,
then the plan for its installation in Turkey would have to be re-considered
and/or even abandoned.
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