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WikiLeaks reveals speculations on Turkey in Stratfor emails
Likened to a shadow CIA by Turkish and international media, an email by the Stratfor Chief Executive George Friedman talks about a meeting between former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
According to that email, Erdoğan told Kissinger that at some point he will eventually burn bridges with Israel and opt for a closer relationship with the Islamic world. Kissinger’s response was indicated in Friedman’s mail as “Erdoğan intends to be the leader of the Islamic world.” Friedman also wrote in the same email that Turkey may not get along well with Israel and the United States, and that an attack by Israel to Iran would be a good opportunity for Erdoğan, who can then claim Turkey’s power, according to the WikiLeaks documents. Some other emails in that regard state that Israeli commandoes destroyed Iran’s nuclear facilities with the help of Kurds and Iranian Jews.
Some observers say that the emails, snatched by hackers, could unmask sensitive sources and shed light on the murky world of intelligence-gathering by the company known as Stratfor, which counts Fortune 500 corporations among its subscribers.
Stratfor in a statement said the release of its stolen emails was an attempt to silence and intimidate it. The company also said that the emails released by WikiLeaks were altered.
Friedman said in a statement that he had not resigned as CEO, contrary to a bogus email circulating on the Internet.
Last December, Stratfor, which describes itself as a subscription-based provider of geopolitical analysis with an intelligence-based approach to gathering information, confirmed that email addresses had been stolen from the firm’s database.
Reports in the Turkish media say that there were paid analysts from Turkey working for for Stratfor which might have also been in contact with some Turkish journalists.
WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange has accused Stratfor of serious offenses such as funneling money to informants through offshore tax havens, monitoring activist groups on behalf of big corporations and making investments based on its secret intelligence. Stratfor denied there was anything improper in the way it dealt with its contacts.
According to WikiLeaks, Stratfor’s Turkey operations have been conducted by Emre Doğru, who has been quoted in the Turkish media as saying he resigned from the company three months ago. He added that Stratfor is a private company that collects information on the economic and commercial infrastructure of countries where some countries have plans for investments. Doğru, who is the US representative for the Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association (TÜSİAD), said his activities were constituted nothing more than commercial lobbying.
In an email dated Dec. 20, 2010, Doğru wrote to Friedman’s wife Meredith Friedman about some of his sources, according to the WikiLeaks documents. Doğru wrote that he found two sources at the state-owned Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO), two other sources from the Turkish military and a diplomat from the foreign ministry who can provide some information. Doğru also mentions a Kurdish source who has become a politician for the Republican People’s Party (CHP).
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