To put it mildly, Turkey has been substantially involved in Syria since the eruption of the Arab Spring in 2011. After Turkish F-16s recently downed a Su-24 Russian tactical bomber over the

region where Turkmen anti-Assad groups are based, Turkish President Erdogan tacitly confirmed Turkey’s covert support for Syrian rebels fighting against Damascus, stating that “anyone who

bombs that area attacks our brothers and sisters — Turkmen.” Beyond setting up a serious confrontation with Russia, Turkish covert action has also caused a standoff between Ankara and

Washington. Turkish covert action carries the risk of diplomatic isolation from both its traditional Western allies and neighboring countries. More worryingly, it risks direct military

proliferation, and proxy war — appear in these documents, albeit with a Cold War flavor. In the 1950s, Bulgaria, Turkey’s northwest neighbor, was a prominent target for Turkish intelligence

and an area of great interest to Turkey’s Western friends. Animosity between Turkey and Bulgaria stretched back the better part of a century. Since Bulgaria shook off Ottoman authority in

the late 19th century, it was viewed by the Sublime Porte and later Ankara as a serious military threat. After Bulgaria gained independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1878, its ethnic

Turkish minority began to immigrate to Anatolia. This decrease in the Turkish population climaxed during first and second Balkan Wars between 1912 and 1913 when the Balkan League, led by

Bulgaria, waged war against the Ottomans to seize remaining territory in the Balkans. As a result of the wars, hundreds of thousands Turks from Bulgaria migrated to Anatolia. Ankara’s

problems with Bulgaria continued after the country signed the Tripartite Pact in 1941 to join the Axis during the Second War World, a move that brought Nazi troops to Turkey’s doorstep. Yet

Bulgaria itself emerged as a major threat to Ankara when it aligned with the Soviet bloc and a communist regime took power in 1947. The poor treatment of its remaining Turkish minority and

its military buildup made Bulgaria a major threat in Ankara’s eyes in the early Cold War. During 1950 and 1951, Bulgaria’s communist government eased exit restrictions for its Turkish

minority. As a result, nearly a quarter of a million Turks from Bulgaria moved to Turkey to escape political repression and discrimination. During the same period, NATO decided to involve

Turkey and Greece in military planning for the defense of the Mediterranean. Even though the two countries would not become NATO member states until the following year, both hosted

significant U.S. military training missions. A February 1951 document held in the NATO archives shows that NATO’s Security Committee, the body responsible for protecting the alliance from

subversion, was concerned that communist agents could blend in with the Turkish migrants from Bulgaria: > It is obvious that a number of these persons may be Communist agents > and a 

few have indeed already been detected. Although the Communist > party has no legal existence [in Turkey] it cannot be assumed that > there are no Communists in the country, though it 

seems probable > that the organisation is not sufficiently effective to permit direct > and consistent penetration of Government organisations. However, as the British Security Service

(MI5) informed NATO, the threat of communist penetration from Bulgaria was well met by the Turkish National Security Service (MAH). MI5 noted that “the degree of infiltration to Government

offices by Communists or fellow travellers can be described as negligible or possibly even non-existent as this is one thing about which the Turks are eternally vigilant.” Acting as both

domestic security service and foreign secret intelligence service, MAH not only prevented communist infiltration, but also successfully recruited human intelligence assets among the

immigrants. After Turkey’s admission to NATO in 1952 as a full member, Turkish G-2 (military intelligence) and MAH synchronized their aims and policies to bring them into line with NATO

requirements. In terms of signals intelligence (SIGINT) and other technical capabilities, Ankara had to depend on help provided by NATO. Yet partial dependence on NATO intelligence did not

mean an absence of effort from the Turks. Indeed, the Turkish intelligence service pursued its own operations against the Socialist bloc. As Gen. Akçakoca from G-2 informed his NATO

counterparts in 1953, the Turkish General Staff were best-informed on Bulgaria, with Romania and the Caucasus next in line. Records available in Turkey’s military archives indicate that

Ankara, as a member of NATO, began to focus its intelligence activities on the Soviet Bloc’s nuclear agenda and uranium production. The records also show that until the mid-1950s, Ankara’s

attempts to collection intelligence on the Soviet nuclear program were rather futile. A 1955 Turkish G-2 report on the Soviets’ uranium production suggested that Ankara did not have “any

clue about the actual figures of the Soviet uranium production.” However, after the mid-1950s, agents recruited from Turkish immigrants from Bulgaria played a crucial role in revealing those

figures to the MAH, leading to very real improvements in Turkish intelligence efforts. For example, the MAH’s intelligence activities targeted Bulgarian uranium production, an operation

revealed to researchers through Bulgarian security records now available at the Cold War International History Project. The MAH was able to reveal the logistics of uranium production from

Bulgaria’s Buhova uranium mine and its route of shipment to Soviet Russia for further enrichment. This information was passed to NATO. Another prominent example of MAH’s activities in

Bulgaria came in 1960. Turkey and its Western allies were eager to reveal the details of missile systems near the Ludogorie region in northeastern Bulgaria. NATO was aware of the existence

of missile systems in the region, but the Bulgarians also built several fake missile ramps to divert attention from real facilities. NATO asked Turkey for help in mapping out the properties

and locations of the missile systems. The earliest Turkish efforts — the capture and interrogation of two Bulgarian agents from the Turkish embassy in Sofia — were not fruitful. After this

failure, MAH recruited a group of agents chosen from the quarter-million Turkish immigrants from Bulgaria. These immigrants constituted good covert assets for missions in Bulgaria because

they were fluent in Turkish and Bulgarian, knew the country, and had a feasible excuse to be there under the cover of visiting their families. After the MAH smuggled these assets into

Bulgaria, they were able to detect the exact location of the missile ramps. They returned to Turkey with their findings, and this intelligence was passed on to NATO’s Intelligence Committee

via Turkey’s G-2. Ankara’s efforts in Bulgaria went beyond covert intelligence collection into covert action. The MAH supported opposition groups to encourage repatriation of Turks in

Bulgaria to Turkey. Declassified records in the British National Archives provide the details of Turkish covert action noted by the British mission in Sofia. In 1956, MAH regional chief Maj.

Kamil Bey, based in the border city of Kırklareli, recruited a group of Bulgarian emigres to engage in subversive activities in Bulgaria, including sabotage of military and economic

targets. These agents were provided with cash, encrypted transmission devices, arms, and forged documents. Details of their targets and the outcome of their missions are not yet

declassified. All this experience shows that Turkey has a lengthy history of conducting covert and clandestine operations in neighboring countries. During the early Cold War, Turkey

synchronized its foreign policy aims within a NATO context and its covert activities followed the same path. This synchronization ensured NATO support, prevented diplomatic isolation, and

served as an insurance policy against Soviet aggression. However, in the case of the current Turkish government’s policies in Syria, Ankara is playing the role of a maverick, its policies

deliberately out of sync with its traditional Western allies. Covert action, such as arming the rebel groups in Syria, has been the main pillar of Turkey’s recent Middle East policies, which

involves the assumption of great risks. Unlike in the early Cold War, Ankara is distrusted by its Western allies. As _The __Wall Street Journal _reported, this distrust was made clear in

the words coming out of a senior White House official: “Enough is enough. … This is an international threat, and it’s all coming out of Syria and it’s coming through Turkish territory.” As a

result of its covert actions, Turkey finds itself increasingly isolated, especially in its efforts in Syria. Of late, Ankara has given signals that it is learning from its recent failures

in the Middle East. It would not be surprising to see Ankara realigning with its Western allies to recover from its current failures. Turkey’s clandestine policy will no doubt follow the

same path. As a result, Ankara’s hidden hand may return back to its Cold War policy of a more synchronized approach with its Western friends to avoid direct confrontation with its neighbors.

_Egemen Bezci is a Doctoral Researcher at the University of Nottingham. His research focuses on secret intelligence cooperation between Turkey and the West._ Special Series, (W)ARCHIVES