On 25 November 2025, a Turkish intelligence investigation sparked wide-ranging questions after it appeared to touch politically sensitive lines in relations with the United Arab Emirates.
An initial official statement, followed by a rapid retreat in its wording, then the issuance of an additional clarification, along with international coverage of the case in a different tone, all raised a central question: what exactly happened on that day for a serious security file to turn into a diplomatic situation requiring urgent containment?
What happened?
The Istanbul Public Prosecutor’s Office announced that a joint investigation with the National Intelligence Organisation and the police counterterrorism unit had uncovered a spy network accused of working on behalf of the Emirati intelligence service.
According to the statement, the network used a Turkish mobile phone SIM card to communicate with senior employees at Turkish defence industry companies, as well as with a phone linked to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and some foreign diplomats, to collect data about them.
The statement identified four suspects. Three were arrested in a simultaneous operation in Istanbul, while an arrest warrant was issued for the fourth, who was outside the country.
Hours later, the Public Prosecutor’s Office deleted the statement from its account on the X platform and published a revised version removing all explicit references to the UAE or its intelligence service. Details relating to certain sensitive targets, including alleged espionage involving the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, were also removed.
Two days later, the prosecution issued a third statement confirming that “the suspects have no connection to the State of the United Arab Emirates”.
The rapid change in the wording of the statements raised questions about the background to this reversal, especially given that the first statement was detailed and included extensive information.
These developments came amid relatively stable relations between Ankara and Abu Dhabi since 2021, following years of tension, despite the recent emergence of new disagreements linked to the war in Sudan, where the UAE supports the Rapid Support Forces militias, while Turkey has strengthened its cooperation with the Sudanese army.
Precedents raising broader suspicions
The UAE has a prior record in espionage cases inside Turkey, though it was not the only party in this context. Israel has also emerged alongside it as one of the two most prominent states whose names have been linked to several such incidents uncovered by the Turkish authorities, most notably:
In April 2019, Turkey arrested two individuals in Istanbul who confessed to spying on Arab nationals on behalf of the UAE, an incident that entrenched in Turkish public opinion the image of Abu Dhabi as an active player in regional espionage wars.
In October 2021, Turkish intelligence dismantled a network of 15 people accused of working for the Mossad and gathering information about Palestinian students at Turkish universities, including their employment opportunities in the defence industries sector.
After 7 October 2023, counter operations against the Mossad accelerated significantly. On 2 January 2024, Turkish authorities detained 34 people suspected of links to the Israeli intelligence service and of targeting Palestinians living in Turkey.
Hebrew media reports dubbed this last operation “Operation Mole” and described it as a direct response to Israeli threats to target Hamas leaders abroad.
At an earlier stage, even before the signing of the normalisation Abraham Accords in 2020, indications of joint espionage between Israel, the United States, and the UAE began to surface in 2019 through companies and programs, most notably:
DarkMatter, an Emirati company. Investigations revealed its role in operating advanced spyware on behalf of the state by recruiting former officers from Israel’s Unit 8200 intelligence division, reinforcing speculation about joint operations targeting external interests.
The ToTok messaging application. The New York Times revealed that the Emirati government spied on users of the application, which was developed by the Abu Dhabi-based company Breej Holding, believed to be linked to DarkMatter.
Project Raven. Concurrent with the exposure of DarkMatter, a secret team of more than 12 former US intelligence agents was revealed to have been recruited to help the UAE monitor other governments as part of a project known as Raven.
Is Israel behind the latest Emirati spy network?
Ali Burak Dargli, a security affairs specialist and retired officer from Turkish intelligence, opened the door to speculation about this possibility in a post on X, saying that Israel largely stands behind the espionage activities carried out by the UAE in Turkey.
Dargli asserted that the UAE, particularly in the recent period, has come under Israeli influence and control, and predicted that Abu Dhabi sought to collect personal information about Turkish engineers, especially their phone numbers.
He argued that the objective was to carry out espionage operations using Pegasus-type software, and explained that Abu Dhabi is attempting to gain access to highly classified information related to Turkey’s defence industry.
Why is Israel interested in Turkey’s defence industries?
Turkey is today an emerging competitor to Israel in arms markets and military technology, particularly in drones, short-range ballistic missiles, and air defence systems, most recently highlighted by its development of the Steel Dome system, modelled on Israel’s Iron Dome.
This competition has been reinforced by growing demand for Turkish unmanned aerial vehicles, which have played a decisive role in several conflicts, from Libya and Syria to Ukraine, Nagorno Karabakh, and other African countries.
Some of the states that purchase Turkish drones or cooperate with Ankara in defence matters are also part of the Iranian, Israeli or Arab Israeli security landscape, including Gulf countries and others in Africa involved in regional influence rivalries.
The growth of Turkish defence industry exports to more than seven billion dollars in 2024 makes any detailed information about the capabilities of Turkish companies, their export plans, and their technical vulnerabilities highly valuable to Israel on two levels:
Direct commercial competition.
Assessment of the military balance of power in the Middle East.
Perhaps the most important aspect of this case is not what was stated in the official announcements, but what was left unsaid. Retreating from a direct accusation, then denying any link to a specific state, does not negate the reality that the espionage arena in Turkey has become more crowded, and that the defence industries have become a central target in a complex regional struggle. With the intertwining roles of states, networks, and companies, the question remains open: was what was uncovered merely the end of a thread, or does what was politically contained conceal beneath it a larger confrontation that has not yet been allowed to come into the open?
