Pakistan – Turkey Intelligence Sharing
Article by Debalina Ghoshal
Pakistan Turkey relations has grown from strength to strength, and one of the major areas of cooperation has been intelligence sharing. Last year, in May, when Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of Turkey, met Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif in Istanbul, cooperation on intelligence sharing was one of the key areas of focus. It is in this context that the article aims to comprehend the strengthening of Turkish Pakistan’s intelligence, sharing cooperation, and its implications for India.
Intelligence sharing: A diplomatic priority
There is little doubt that intelligence sharing remains a diplomatic priority for Turkey and Pakistan. The two countries realise that military and defence cooperation could only be strengthened when both have coordinated intelligence sharing. Prior to the two ministers meeting in May, following the Pahalgam massacre, a high-level Turkish delegation led by Turkish General Staff Intelligence Chief, Lt. Gen. Yasser Kadioglu visited Pakistan’s Air Force headquarters in Islamabad in April. He met the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Zaheer Ahmed Baber Sidhu, as a move to deepen ties with Pakistan amid the latter’s growing tensions with India.
Even though Pakistan-Turkey growing relations vouch for a strong mechanism to counter terrorism, Turkey does wish to exploit the vulnerability of the tensions between India and Pakistan. This is clear from the fact that people in the Turkish government have called Pakistan a “border outpost” for Turkey. Growing cooperation between Turkey’s National Intelligence Organisation or the MİT – Millî İstihbarat Teşkilatı and Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) provide enough evidence towards the fact that Turkey’s ambitions have extended towards a greater footprint in not only Middle East, but also in Southern Asia.
This strengthening of cooperation is not surprising owing to the fact that Turkey’s MIT has conducted high level operations to dismantle ISIS and in the recent past has also increased its stringent operations against the PKK leaders in Iraq. In addition, the organisation has also earned credibility in counter-intelligence operations.
The organisation is also actively involved in providing logistical support and funding to radical groups in Bangladesh. Turkey’s intelligence agency is enabling Istanbul to strengthen its influence in Bangladesh to ensure regional influence in Southern Asia is strengthened through cooperation with its Islamic brothers in the region.
Turkey is providing both Pakistan and Bangladesh advanced weapon technologies to strengthen their conventional arsenals. Turkish drones have been used by Pakistan during Operation Sindoor to escalate the crisis into a low cost warfare. Both Pakistan and Bangladesh have aimed to reduce their dependency on China to cater to their security needs, and Turkey has evolved as the perfect defence partner in the Muslim world.
This partnership not only enables Istanbul to strengthen its influence in South Asia, but it also enables Islamabad to become a big player in West Asia. In the recent Iran-Israel war, which also included the United States, Pakistan played a critical role as a mediator between Iran and the United States along-side Turkey and Egypt.
One reason why intelligence sharing between Pakistan and Turkey is crucial is also because of Turkey’s growing defence industry, which is also export driven. South Asian periphery has been in turmoil owing to ‘security dilemma’ and Turkey could exploit Pakistan and Bangladesh’s security concerns and trust deficit vis-à-vis India to expand its defence cooperation in the region.
Turkey’s acquiring of the S-400 air and missile defence system from Russia despite being a NATO member resulted in the country being out of the list of countries who could acquire the US F-35 Joint Strike Fighters (JSF). This strengthened cooperation with Pakistan has enabled Istanbul to look beyond the Markin Yuktrashtra (the United States) and focus on Pakistan-China jointly made Jf-17 Thunder.
However, Turkey’s influence is expanding not only in South Asia, but its intelligence and defence cooperation is also extending to other parts of the world including Central Asia, Middle East as well as South East Asia. Its major focus has been to strengthen ties with Muslim majority countries by exploiting their vulnerabilities to expand its defence foothold in these countries.
Turkey is a proud developer of the next generation aircraft KAAN in which even Saudi Arabia has expressed its interest. Owing to the security pact between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey, Pakistan is also in the process of inducting KAAN aircraft in its arsenal to strengthen its air power capabilities.
Pakistan is also selling the JF-17 aircraft to Azerbaijan, and this aircraft will use Turkish missiles. Turkey also fostered ties with the newly formed government in Syria and strengthened intelligence sharing as key to maximising scope for defence and military cooperation with the country.
Turkey also strengthened intelligence sharing cooperation with Azerbaijan in Central Asia. Istanbul has also expanded the influence of its intelligence sharing with Indonesia and Malaysia in South East Asia. It has also deepened its defence ties with these countries.
India’s concerns
India’s concerns will not only confine to intelligence sharing between Turkey and its regional neighbours, but also Turkey’s growing military influence among countries where India will supply weapons capabilities namely Indonesia. It concerns India’s weapon sales to countries like Armenia which is fighting against Azerbaijan, a strong ally of both Pakistan and Indonesia.
Conclusion
Thus, South Asia is not the only region where Turkey is expanding its influence. Turkey’s growing influence across many regions is as a result of an ambitious leadership who aspires for Turkey to become a regional player extending from Middle East to Southern Asia. He also aspires to make Turkey a trusted friend in the Islamic world.
