Turkey restructures intelligence after coup attempt

ISTANBUL

The head of the National Intelligence Agency Hakan Fidan is seen in this photo

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım has said that the National Intelligence Agency (MİT) will be structured in a way that is able to wiretap and monitor the ones who wiretap, as he commented on the measures that the government is planning to take after the July 15 failed coup attempt, believed to have been masterminded by Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ).

“We are doing new efforts regarding MİT. Due to the developing communications technologies and world conditions, intelligence agencies should be renewed. For instance, Sept. 11, 2001 was a milestone for the U.S. They reconstructed their intel agencies after that date,” he told foreign correspondents in a meeting in Istanbul, adding that the domestic intelligence should be strengthened and preventive intel is “very significant.”

“July 15 showed us that protective measures and preventive intel are very significant. I wish that the coup attempt would be prevented even if we didn’t receive any intel. We will restructure the intelligence as domestic and foreign. There will be an intelligence coordination structure above them, of which the purpose will be to make the domestic and foreign ones work together and supervise them,” he also said.