Turkey’s spy chief met a delegation from Hamas in Ankara on Friday to discuss negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza, according to state broadcaster TRT.
Ibrahim Kalin, head of Turkey’s National Intelligence Agency, met the Hamas political bureau leadership delegation, TRT Haber said, citing Turkish security sources, without saying who the delegation members were.
Turkey’s intelligence agency has been in contact with all actors, including Hamas, Israel, Qatar, and the United States, and is conducting intensive diplomacy for a ceasefire in Gaza, TRT said.
Kalin is expected to be putting pressure on Hamas to accept a deal after the United States asked the Turkish government to intervene in the negotiations, according to Walla.
The US-requested intervention by Turkey is not part of the existing official mediation agreements.
Senior US officials told Walla that the negotiations were being stymied by Hamas’s new demands for an increase in the number of prisoners released.
High-level meetings
This meeting comes only days after high-ranking Hamas members met with the Qatari Prime Minister and head of Egyptian intelligence in Doha in an attempt to break the deadlock.
A Turkish security source told Walla that senior Hamas officials at the meeting said they were demonstrating positive and constructive attitudes during the negotiations, and that it was Israel that had presented new conditions – complicating the negotiations.
This came on the back of a week of unfriendly incidents between Israel and Turkey, in which Turkey called for an “Islamic alliance” against Israel.
Turkey under Erdogan has generally sided with Islamist groups against Israel, having hosted the Mavi Marmara Flotilla in 2009 and even offered to host Hamas in the months after October 7.
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