Leaked news of a meeting between intelligence chiefs from two diplomatically estranged countries in the Middle East seems bewildering at first — but reveals much upon further examination. Daily newspaper Hurriyet ran a story June 11 that claimed Israeli Mossad chief Tamir Pardo and Hakan Fidan, undersecretary of Turkey's National Intelligence Organization, or MIT, held a meeting on June 10 in Ankara. The next day, the newspaper's English-language version, the Hurriyet Daily News, ran a similar version of the story.

The Hurriyet report suggested that the two officials met to discuss the involvement of Syrian and Iranian intelligence agencies in the ongoing demonstrations against Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government. Hurriyet also claimed Pardo had requested a meeting with Erdogan but was rebuffed. A few hours after the Hurriyet report was released, the Times of Israel cited unnamed Israeli sources who corroborated the information and claimed that intelligence was shared on activities carried out in Turkey by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Notably, these same sources denied Hurriyet's claim that Pardo made a request to meet Erdogan and was turned down.

There must be a good reason for these two top-level intelligence chiefs to get together. Such meetings are typically called when there is specific and actionable intelligence that is deemed critical enough to share. The claim that Pardo and Fidan discussed Iranian and Syrian intelligence activity in Turkey makes sense. In what could well be a related event, Turkey’s state-owned Anatolian News Agency reported June 11 that close to midnight on June 10 — the same day the two intelligence leaders met — Turkish authorities, with the assistance of security and intelligence agencies, had arrested the principal actor connected to the May 11 Reyhanli car bombings. As we highlighted when that attack took place, the twin bombings in Reyhanli, near the Syrian-Turkish border, were likely linked to Syrian and Iranian aims to intimidate the Turkish government into backing off its support for Syrian rebels.

Leaks on this scale are typically part of a political agenda. At first glance, Hurriyet is a strange candidate to be the recipient of a government leak. The newspaper has had a tumultuous relationship with the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, and has only recently regained enough confidence to resume critical reporting of the government. Turkey’s heavily politicized media environment makes it unlikely that a little-known staff reporter for Hurriyet would deal closely enough with the ruling party to make Hurriyet the go-to newspaper for such a sensitive leak.

At the same time, the state-run media, as the government’s more logical go-to agency, has lost a great deal of credibility among the Turkish public for its unsurprisingly light coverage of the protests. The AKP government has also seen former major media allies, such as Zaman and Today’s Zaman, openly break with Erdogan over the protests. A large media outlet like Hurriyet that has been both critical and cautious in the government's regard, therefore, might lend the AKP some credibility as it seeks to convey its message in a particularly delicate political atmosphere.

That message could be seen plainly in the way the story was framed. The Hurriyet report made a point to link the Israeli-Turkish intelligence meeting not just to Syrian and Iranian intelligence activity in Turkey, but specifically to the Gezi Park demonstrations. The story conveniently aligns with Erdogan’s repeated pronouncements that a foreign hand is stoking the protests to undermine the Turkish government. Erdogan naturally wants to depict the protesters as representing a foreign agenda as opposed to one that reflects popular dissatisfaction with his rule. Linking a top-level intelligence meeting to such claims may have been designed to give Erdogan’s narrative on the protests the credibility it has lacked.

Another element to the Hurriyet story also fits a long-running AKP narrative. The idea that Israel’s intelligence chief flew to Ankara and requested to meet with Erdogan on an urgent matter, only to be rebuffed, plays into the party's carefully crafted image of a resurgent Turkey willing to stand up for the Islamic world against Israel. Notably, the unnamed Israeli sources cited in the Israeli media refuted that detail of the Hurriyet story.

Once the layers of unnamed sources, leaks and various forms of political intrigue are peeled away, a simple truth remains: Israel and Turkey are still able to collaborate on mutually strategic issues despite the diplomatic bravado that's strained their relationship over the past four years. Whether it’s Israel’s concerns over what weapons may come through Turkey to help the rebels even the playing field in the Syrian regime’s counteroffensive, worries over how far Russia will go in aiding that counteroffensive, or mutual concerns over Iranian covert activity throughout the region, there is a long list of intelligence gaps that Israel and Turkey could work to address together. Cooperation between the two will still be strained, but neither country is in a position to manage alone the array of growing regional threats.