Turkish officials reportedly got the whiff of the plan to slip President Donald Trump out of Turkey aboard a decoy aircraft last month, when the US Secret Service team requested additional landing permits for the C-32 aircraft. The pressure to make last-minute changes created the impression in Ankara that something was wrong, according to a report.
However, Turkish officials believe that the Israeli intelligence report that triggered the developments was nothing but a ruse by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to undermine negotiations with Tehran, reported Middle East Eye.
Turkish journalists got a whiff of something unusual when the country’s security forces were seen unusually deploying additional units to Ankara Airport, where Trump’s Air Force One was parked.
Ankara was under lockdown for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) summit on 7-8 July. Roads were blocked, and public servants were given a week of leave to keep the city deserted. Ankara even transformed an airbase of the Turkish Air Force, Etimesgut Air Base, officially known as Ankara Airport, for the event, allowing heads of state to reach the summit venue within 10 minutes.
It was then that the US officials told their Turkish counterparts that they had received an intelligence report from Israel suggesting Iran could target Trump. “Supposedly, the Iranians could target the aircraft from within a one-kilometre radius using shoulder-fired missiles known as Manpads,” Middle East Eye quoted an unnamed source.
Ankara also took note that the Israeli alert came at a sensitive moment. Trump was negotiating a deal with Iran to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which contradicted Netanyahu’s agenda. The Turkish officials believe the alert was a ruse by Netanyahu’s government to portray itself as protecting Trump, derail negotiations with Iran and undermine Trump’s apparently close relationship with Erdogan.
Ankara also believes Netanyahu wanted US plans to lift sanctions imposed on Turkey over its 2019 purchase of the Russian-made S-400 missile system and to sell F-35 fighter jets to Ankara derailed.
“Of course, we took the report very seriously and tried to assist our American counterparts as much as possible,” one person familiar with the matter told MEE. “Yet it was very clear to us that there was no way this report was true.”
This was also a plan by Netanyahu to put Turkey on a collision course with Iran. Both countries maintain stable relations with Ankara since the beginning of the war.
An Ankara insider told MEE it was ironic that details of the Secret Service operation to protect Trump had been leaked just a month after the summit. “I guess they need heroes for an attack that never happened and, most likely, was never planned,” the insider said.
