Turkish intel chief’s address to envoys cancelled

ANKARA

Although Fidan had addressed last year’s conference at a closed-door briefing, this time his speech was canceled by the Foreign Ministry.

Although it was on the scheduled program of the Sixth Ambassadors’ Conference, a briefing to be delivered by the country’s top intelligence official to the chiefs of diplomatic missions of Turkey as well as to its ambassadors assigned in the headquarters in the capital city of Ankara was canceled in an apparently last minute decision.

National Intelligence Organization (MİT) Undersecretary Hakan Fidan was scheduled to address the ambassadors on Jan. 16, the fourth day of the week-long conference. However, his address was omitted in the regular daily program note sent by the Foreign Ministry to press rooms late on Jan. 15. 

Fidan had addressed last year’s conference at a closed-door briefing. 

The cancellation came as Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu cautioned ambassadors of Turkey not to leak content of closed-door meetings to media, noting that such leaks would lead ministers to avoid briefings to envoys at the annual ambassadors’ conferences. 

The warning by the minister came on Jan. 15 at a morning session during the ongoing Sixth Ambassadors’ Conference. On the same day, several media outlets reported Deputy Prime Minister Beşir Atalay’s remarks during a closed-door session with ambassadors on Jan. 14 when he said that countries like Germany and Iran are complicating Turkey’s efforts to end a militant Kurdish insurgency at perceived injustice.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Levent Gümrükçü told Anadolu Agency on Jan. 15 that some reports in the Turkish media about Atalay’s remarks addressing the ambassadors’ conference did not reflect the truth.