Turkish secret services target refugee camps
Turkey has been conducting secret missions in refugee camps and other places in Greece to gather information about critics of the Turkish government and supporters of self-exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, who have taken refuge in Greece, according to a publication by the Nordic Monitor website.
Titled “Turkish Intelligence Operations in Greece Exposed in Secret Documents,” the report by journalist Abdullah Bozkurt, published on Sunday, claims that the Turkish intelligence agency MIT infiltrated refugee camps in Greece in order to spy on critics of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government.
The article makes reference to secret documents from 2018 and 2019 that compiled data from various government agencies.
According to former and current officials of the Greek security services, Turkey has been trying to gather information about Gulenists in Greece in recent years. The same officials have not ruled out the claim made in the Nordic Monitor regarding missions by MIT in the country, and Athens in particular.
Meanwhile, Geek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias will again raise the issue of Turkey’s aggressive behavior in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean at Wednesday's teleconference of the European Union Foreign Affairs Council.
Dendias will specifically raise Ankara’s declared intention to conduct drilling operations in Cyprus’ continental shelf, but also Turkish overflights above large Aegean islands (Rhodes, Lesvos, Chios, Samos) and violations to the south of Crete. The Foreign Ministry said that Turkey’s planned drilling operations are “yet another provocation that ignores the calls of the EU and the international community for respect of international legality and of the sovereign rights of the Republic of Cyprus.”
“It also confirms, once again, Turkey’s destabilizing role and its standing as the principal violator of international law in the region,” the ministry said.
