Turkish police arrested seven more people they believe were selling information to the Israeli spy agency Mossad. This is part of a series of arrests in Turkiye for the same reason.
The police arrested the suspects at the same time in Istanbul. The Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced this on the social media site X, which used to be called Twitter. The raids were a team effort with Turkey’s spy agency.
Yerlikaya said that the people who were arrested are believed to have been gathering information about people and businesses in Turkey and then selling it to a spy agency in Israel. “We won’t let anyone spy in our country. ”
It is not known yet if there are any charges, and the authorities did not give any more information.
Last month, seven more people, including private detectives, were arrested for the same suspicions. In the beginning of January, Turkish police arrested 34 people for possibly spying for Israel.
The people who were arrested in January are being accused of planning to do things like watching and attacking foreign people who live in Turkey.
At that time, the Minister of Justice Yilmaz Tunc said that most of the people accused were charged with doing spying for Israel.
The government’s Anadolu Agency reported that on Tuesday, some people were arrested, including a former civil servant who now works as a private detective. It is said that he was trained by Mossad in Belgrade, Serbia. He gathered information about companies and people in the Middle East, and also put tracking devices in the vehicles of people that Israeli intelligence was keeping an eye on, according to Anadolu.
In 2022, Turkey and Israel became friends again after many years of arguments. They did this by sending ambassadors to each other’s countries. However, the relationship quickly got worse after the war between Israel and Hamas. Ankara became one of the most vocal critics of Israel’s military operations in Gaza.
In December, the leader of Israel’s security agency said they were ready to attack the militant Hamas group in Lebanon, Turkey, and Qatar.
The President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told Israel that there will be bad results if they go through with their plan to attack Hamas members in Turkey.