Μake us preferred on Google The head of Turkey’s national intelligence agency made an unannounced visit to Athens last week, where he had a series of meetings with Greek officials, including his counterpart at the Greek National Intelligence Service (EYP), according to reporting by newspaper TA NEA.
The visit by İbrahim Kalın, who leads Turkey’s MIT (Milli Istihbarat Teskilati) and has served in the past as an advisor to Turkish President on security and foreign affairs issues, raises questions about whether he was acting as a messenger for Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a moment of mounting friction between the two neighboring countries. Three issues loom large: a dispute over marine parks in the Aegean; a newly signed defense agreement between Greece and Israel that will lead to the construction of the “Shield of Achilles“; and the “Mecca Mutual Defense Accord,” signed Aug. 7 in Istanbul, which groups Turkey with several Muslim-majority nations in a collective security framework.
Kalin met with his direct counterpart, Themistoklis Demiris, the head of EYP, but also with a number of other unnamed officials in the Greek capital, according to the reporting.
Organized crime and migrant smuggling
TA NEA reports that Kalin and his team discussed the presence of an estimated 300 Turkish organized crime members believed to have been operating in Greece over the past four years, drawn from roughly 15 criminal networks. The conversations also touched on migrant smuggling, with a focus on five to seven Turkish nationals suspected of coordinating crossings from Turkey’s coastline, though the flow of irregular arrivals appears to have eased in recent months.
The discussions also extended to matters that concern not only the intelligence services of both countries but also their police authorities, for which an established channel of contact and regular officer exchanges between Greece and Turkey is already in place. The meeting also covered the activity of terrorism networks and espionage following the renewed flare-up in the Middle East.
Who is Ibrahim Kalin?
Kalin, took over as the head of MIT, Turkey’s national intelligence agency with an estimated 10,000 staff, in June 2023, succeeding Hakan Fidan, who became Turkey’s foreign minister.
An academic and author specializing in Islamic philosophy, religion, history and international relations, with studies in the United States, Turkey and Malaysia, the 55-year-old became Erdogan’s chief foreign policy adviser in 2009. In 2012 he served as deputy minister for external relations and public diplomacy, and in 2015 Erdogan deployed him as a special envoy to resolve the crisis with Russia following the downing of a Russian jet. He played a similar role in 2017 during the diplomatic standoff between Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
In September 2024, he visited Tripoli, Libya, and met with the Libyan prime minister to relay Ankara’s stance on resolving the Libyan crisis. During 2024 and 2025, he met with members of Hamas’ political bureau as part of Turkish efforts to broker a cease-fire in Gaza. Reuters previously reported that CIA Director William Burns contacted Kalin directly during the 2024 Iran-Israel crisis, asking him to assist in mediation.
A complicated record on Greece
TA NEA notes that for Greek observers, Kalin’s record on bilateral issues is mixed. In early 2021, he described a new round of Greek-Turkish contacts as “an important step for relations between the two countries and for the balance in the Aegean.” But during the 2020 Eastern Mediterranean crisis, when Turkey dispatched a survey vessel into waters Greece considers its continental shelf, Kalin was an active participant in formulating Ankara’s hardline stance on maritime zones involving both Greece and Cyprus. In earlier public statements, he was a vocal defender of Erdogan’s assertive posture on Cyprus, the Eastern Mediterranean and Turkey’s right to project power in the region.
Source: TA NEA
