The Swedish Nordic Research Monitoring Network has published intelligence documents revealing that the Turkish embassy in Chile spied on resident Turkish citizens and forwarded a list of their information to Ankara, the Turkish capital.
“The profiling documents may have been sent to Ankara by Naciye Gökçen Kara or Gülin Dinç, who were the Turkish ambassadors to Chile between 2013 and 2019,” The Swedish Network tells.
According to the same network, it was also revealed in 2019 that the Turkish Embassy in Chile developed assets within the Socialist Party of Chile to spy on critics of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
According to a December 13, 2018 decision by prosecutor Birol Tufan, the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office launched an investigation (file no.2018/27632) into five Turkish nationals who were on the list dispatched by Turkish diplomats in Chile without any concrete evidence of wrongdoing. They were charged with “membership in a terrorist group” by Tufan.
According to the official correspondence sent by the embassy in Santiago to headquarters in Ankara, Turkish diplomats asked some members of the National Congress from the PS to gather information on critics living in Chile. The document did not mention the names of the party members but referred to them in the plural, meaning that more than one reported to the Turkish Embassy.
Critics of the Erdoğan government abroad, especially the members of Hizmet/Gülen movement, have been facing surveillance, harassment, death threats and abduction.
In a separate context, on Sunday, Turkish security forces arrested 3 members of the Gülen movement in İpsala district, Edirne province, northwest Turkey, while they were trying to flee to Greece.
“Turkish security forces arrested the suspects in a military area near the Greek border,” Turkish media confirms.
“When investigating the identities of the three people, it was found out that they belong to the Gülen movement,” the Turkish media details.
It is notable that Turkey has designated Gülen as a “terrorist organization” and, additionally, held it responsible for the failed 2016 coup attempt.
