Attempted Assassination of an Israeli in Istanbul – Why Did Iran Deliberately Involve Turkey in Its Disputes With 'Israel'?

Turkish media revealed that an Iranian cell had been arrested before its planned assassination of a famous Israeli businessman, what sparked widespread controversy locally and internationally, on the motives for this step, days before the visit of the President of the Israeli occupation, Isaac Herzog, to Ankara.

Under official silence on the part of all parties to the case, the incident dominated the headlines in both Turkey and "Israel," while the local Iranian media ignored it.

Although the series of hostility between Iran and the Israeli occupation is not a new thing, Tehran's adventure is to plunge its strategic neighbor Turkey into this confrontation prompted analysts to assert that “the Iranians are disturbed by the escalating course of normalization of relations between Ankara and Tel Aviv, and are trying to sabotage it before it changes many geopolitical equations, especially in the energy field.”

New Confrontation

On February 11, 2022, Sabah newspaper, which is close to the Turkish government, revealed that “the National Intelligence Service (MIT) succeeded in dismantling an Iranian cell of nine people that was planning to assassinate the Jewish businessman Yair Geller, who holds Israeli and Turkish citizenship, and works in the defense and space sectors."

The newspaper added, quoting security sources, that “the revenge attempt to assassinate Geller, 75, would have come as a response to the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh near Tehran in November 2020, which was attributed to the Israeli Mossad.”

In addition to sabotaging the course of normalizing relations between Turkey and "Israel" before Herzog’s visit in mid-March 2022, as well as placing Ankara in a difficult position on the international scene, if the process is completed successfully.

At first, the Iranian cell spotted Geller and photographed him at every opportunity, while he was in his company in the Catalca region, and at his residence in Besiktas district of Istanbul.

Meanwhile, Turkish intelligence was monitoring the movements of all members of the cell, and it was found that among them were Turkish citizens recruited by Iranian intelligence.

From Iran, the cell is headed by intelligence officer Yasin Taher Emamkendi (53 years), while the 44-year-old Iranian, Saleh Bighouz, was the leader of the cell in Turkey.

“After a month of investigation and monitoring, eight people were arrested on charges of founding and belonging to a criminal organization, the leader of the network (Emamkendi) could not be arrested due to his residency in Iran,” the newspaper confirmed.

According to the same source, “the cell was about to carry out the assassination, after it had completed the reconnaissance phase and gathering information about Geller.”

Which prompted the Turkish intelligence to share the information it reached with the Israeli Mossad, a secret high-level meeting was held between the two sides in the capital, Ankara.

The meeting took a decision to move the Jewish businessman to a safe place, the Turkish intelligence agreed to form a special team for the Mossad to protect Geller, after he refused to move to Tel Aviv, stressing that he loves Istanbul.

It is remarkable that hours after Sabah revealed the details of this operation, the Turkish Anadolu Agency published information about the arrest of another cell of 14 people working for Iranian intelligence by the Turkish intelligence service, for the kidnapping of Iranian dissidents residing on Turkey.

 

Competing Powers

Regarding this confrontation, the Turkish expert in international relations, Tolga Sakman, told Al-Estiklal that “Israel is one of the main axes of Iran's foreign policy and may be the most important one. We believe that Tel Aviv's position in the Middle East has changed after the normalization agreements with the Gulf states. Of course, Tehran sees this change as well.”

Sakman, who is head of the Center for Diplomatic Affairs and Political Studies (based in Istanbul), adds :“Although they are two competing powers in the Middle East, Iran and Turkey have united for a certain time in the anti-Israel front.”

“There is no doubt that Turkey's transformation in the past years from a country that has stable relations with Israel in the Middle East, to one of the few countries hostile to it in the region, was important to Iran's foreign policy,” he continues.

“Israel has a different position in Turkish foreign policy; the Jewish Lobby in the United States, the Mechanism for Maintaining Balance in the Region, the Eastern Mediterranean Strategy, and supporting Azerbaijan in the Karabakh war are all factors that constantly bring the two countries together,” Sakman says.

“As for Iran, it dreams of the continuation of the confrontation between Turkey and Israel. This means that the two countries will waste their capabilities and capabilities on each other, at the same time, Tehran will not want to be alone in the face of Tel Aviv,” he says.

On his part, Dr. Ismail Soylemez, professor of international relations at the Turkish University of Inonu, said that “Iran sees every country at the fore in Islamic geography and helping the Muslims of the world as its competitor.”

“Every step that Turkey takes with regard to Palestine in the region is closely followed by Iran, which does not want Turkey to be in a strong position to negotiate with Israel,” he added to Al-Estiklal.

“Iran knows that the basis of Turkey's efforts to normalize with Israel is the necessity of normalizing its relations with Cyprus, North Africa and the Gulf states, it does not want Ankara to succeed in this, as it will enhance its power and influence,” Soylemez stressed.

On his part, the Israeli military expert, Ron Ben Yishai, saw that “when the Turks announce their arrest of an Iranian cell, there must be a good reason for that, given their need for Iranian gas.”

“Therefore, the news was published with great caution and great care, and it is also very important for Turkey to indicate the improvement of its relations with Israel in the recent period,” he said.

Ben Yishai explained in an article in the Hebrew newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth on February 11 that “there is a conflict between Sunni Ankara and Shiite Tehran, but the two countries also have common interests, the first is that Iran is circumventing US sanctions by transporting oil and gas through Turkey, and the other is that both countries have an interest in confronting the Kurds, who aspire to independence and the establishment of a Kurdistan state.”

“In the past two years, especially after the assassination of the commander of the Quds Force in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Qassem Soleimani, there has been intense and noticeable Iranian activity on Turkish soil to gather information on Israeli targets in preparation for retaliatory operations, whereas the Turkish authorities were aware of this activity and were monitoring it,” he stated.

It is also remarkable that these developments came days after the Hebrew website Ynet announced that “the Director-General of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Alon Oshbis, made a secret visit to Turkey at the end of January 2022, as part of preparations for President Herzog's visit.”

This is the first visit at a high political level in the past six years, since the visit of the former Director-General of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Yuval Rotem, to Turkey in 2016.

“The warmth in relations between the two countries began immediately after Herzog's election as President of Israel, as Erdogan called him and congratulated him on his appointment,” the website confirmed.

The contact between the two presidents also helped in the release of the two Israeli tourists, Mordi and Natalie Oknin, who were arrested after they photographed a presidential palace.

Herzog also recently spoke with Erdogan after he was infected with COVID-19, and wished him well.

 

Relationship History

Relations between Iran and Turkey have always been stable, despite the differences between them, in contrast to Tehran's well-known rivalries with Riyadh and Tel Aviv.

While relations between "Israel" and Turkey were stable until they worsened after the military campaign on the Gaza Strip in 2008, it deteriorated and reached the point of estrangement after the Israeli navy's interception of the Freedom Flotilla in 2011, in which ten Turkish activists were killed.

In response, Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador and froze military cooperation, and the two countries curtailed intelligence sharing.

In 2016, the two countries resumed diplomatic relations, but two years later, tension returned, because of the Turkish position on the Israeli military operations in Gaza, to become diplomatic relations between them at the Charge d'Affaires level.

With the end of the era of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in late 2021, President Erdogan affirmed his desire to improve relations with "Israel."

In January 2022, after Iran stopped supplying gas to Turkey for about two weeks, under the pretext of a technical malfunction; Erdogan referred to the possibility of using Israeli gas extracted from the eastern Mediterranean in his country, and worked to transfer it to Europe through joint cooperation between the two sides.

He explained, in statements reported by Anadolu Agency, that “the issue of transporting gas to Turkey will be on the table of talks with the Israeli President during his visit to Ankara in mid-March 2022.”

On February 8, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu stressed that “any step towards normalizing relations between his country and Israel would not be at the expense of the Palestinian cause, as some countries did.”

He added in a press conference, commenting on the upcoming Israeli president's visit to Ankara, that “the normalization of Turkish-Israeli relations might contribute to strengthening Turkey's role in reaching a two-state solution.”

 

Eastern Mediterranean Gas

Perhaps the pivotal point behind all these moves is the huge gas reserves discovered in the eastern Mediterranean.

In recent years, the Israeli occupation entered the world of energy-rich countries after discovering huge quantities of gas in the Mediterranean that exceed its domestic demands.

Since then, Tel Aviv has found itself in a whirlpool of trade-offs between the most appropriate ways to export its gas surpluses.

The companies operating in the Israeli gas fields want to speed up the extraction and sale of gas to cover their expenses, provide profit to their shareholders and finance their future operations.

The first option to export before "Israel" was the neighboring markets, which it achieved by signing contracts to export gas to Egypt and Jordan.

Although it has made great progress in this file, Tel Aviv still has reserves that it wants to sell, and it seeks to reach Europe and its huge market captive to the Russian bear.

The option of exporting Israeli gas to Europe via Turkey is the fastest and least expensive, but it was blocked, due to the tension between the two countries.

This option only requires the construction of an undersea pipeline from the Israeli Leviathan field to the southern coast of Turkey, which already owns a huge network of pipes connecting it to Europe, and the cost of the project is estimated at $2.5 billion.

Turkish government data indicate that the country relies almost entirely on gas imported from Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran to meet its energy needs, the latter providing 16 percent of Ankara's natural gas needs in the first ten months of 2021.

Israeli gas would turn Turkey into a regional energy transfer hub, which will benefit it in terms of prices and economic and political influence, and will not make it captive to the desires of countries such as Iran.