Russia, Turkey and United Arab Emirates. The intelligence services organize and investigate

Commentary: The Kremlin is taking steps to strengthen the Russian secret services vis-a-vis Turkey, and is watching closely as Ankara and Abu Dhabi try to turn a new page after eight years of icy relations

Russia, Turkey and United Arab Emirates. The intelligence services organize and investigate

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan meets with UAE National Security Advisor Tahnun bin Zayed al-Nahyan in Ankara on August 18. Presidential Press Office/Handout via REUTERS

The FSB (Federal’naja Služba Bezopasnosti Rossijskoj Federácii, the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation) - created in 1995 from the ashes of the Komitet Gosudarstvennoj Bezopasnosti (KGB), the State Security Committee - is ready for additional responsibilities under the new national security strategy. President Putin's recent redefinition of the FSB’s role provides some indications on the national security strategy that will soon be announced - a strategy that will affect seas, borders and the security of strategically important intelligence. 

On June 1, 2021 President Putin issued a decree outlining the new priorities that will be given to the FSB in Russia's revised national security strategy, which replaces the one that officially ended last year.

The changes to the Intelligence Service's regulatory framework, including the peripheral one, provides some indications on the Russian security priorities. Some of the main changes include additional responsibilities for intelligence security, counterterrorism, border control and stronger protection of maritime interests. 

Border control and the various references to counterterrorism in its broadest sense - as recently defined by Russia - means entrusting the security service with a number of new areas and tasks, including the redefinition of procedures to detect political radicalization.

Border control is also strengthened in the revised rules, with FSB border guards acquiring records, filing and storing biometric data and obtaining and processing DNA information obtained during border checks.

The details on access to Russian soil shed light on the Kremlin's problems with its own fellow countrymen. In the article on the FSB's involvement in controlling entry into Russia, the decree mentions the "territories requiring special authorization" such as Transnistria, some parts of Georgia and Eastern Ukraine, and states that the FSB will be involved in a national program to facilitate the voluntary repatriation of Russians living abroad. 

Intelligence is a valuable asset and its security has always been one of the Kremlin's main concerns. Therefore, the new strategy makes the FSB the leading agency, not just the end user regarding computers, security and telecommunication encryption.

It will oversee and supervise the implementation of the new technological security throughout the community. All this was outlined in December in a law that redefined the role of the FSB's Centre for State Licensing, Certification and Protection. It will grant licenses for the use of “special technical means and equipment intended to receive information secretly”. 

The FSB will also examine patents for classified inventions. In addition to its official role in intelligence warfare, the FSB has been tasked with producing more security measures to protect the identity of Russian intelligence agents, and keep the confidentiality of its own officials, officers and soldiers.

The Internal Security Service will also set up a new procedure to inspect agents and individuals entering the army, the intelligence services and the Federal Administration. Using the protection of marine life as an additional task, the FSB will also have increased responsibilities for the seas, including competence and powers over the protection of fishing grounds outside Russia's exclusive economic zone, the establishment of checkpoints for fishing vessels entering or leaving the zone, and the power to suspend the right of passage for foreign vessels in certain Russian maritime zones.

The Service will also define the structure of operational offices in maritime zones. These measures follow a law adopted last October outlining the FSB's role in "establishing control and checks in fisheries and the conservation of sea biological resources". 

An important concept in Russian history and life is the silovik. He is a representative of law enforcement agencies, intelligence agencies, armed forces and other structures to which the State delegates the right to use force. This concept is often extended to representatives of political groups, but also to businessmen, associated with power structures in Russia or formerly in the Soviet Union. 

As a jargon term, this word is used in other languages as a broad political term in everyday conversation and in journalism to describe political processes typical of Russia or the former Soviet Union. The etymology of the word is the Russian word sila, meaning strength, force and power.

Trying to renew the aforementioned concept, President Putin provides momentum and injects new impetus into the meaning of this word. After putting the issue on the agenda of the National Security Council of May 28 last, the President is now pushing for the publication of the national security strategy. It has been delayed despite the fact that the Deputy Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation (Sovet bezopasnosti Rossijskoj Federacii), Sergej Vachrukov, had announced it was to be published in February. 

As we might commonly believe, the steps to strengthen the Russian secret services are not so much focused on the aforementioned and movie-style “derby” between secret agents, but are mainly targeted to Russia’s traditional "Ottoman" adversary, namely neighboring Turkey.

President Erdogan's official meeting with the UAE’s National Security Advisor, Tahnun bin Zayed al-Nahyan, and the renewed ties with Abu Dhabi are the result of behind-the-scenes regional intelligence operations in which the Kremlin wants to see straight and clearly.

While there is still a deep political divide both between Russia and Turkey, and between Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, the Turkish President hopes to encourage future Emirates’ investment. Turkish President Erdogan's unprecedented meeting with the UAE's national security representative, the aforementioned al-Nahyan, in Ankara on August 18 can be largely attributed to the work of the two countries' intelligence services over the last few months.

There is a desire to turn a new page after eight years of icy relations, crystallized by the 2013 overthrow of Egypt's leader Mohamed Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood’s member close to Turkey and firmly opposed by the United Arab Emirates.  

Steps towards reconciliation began on January 5, 2021 at the Gulf Cooperation Council Summit in al-Ula. The Summit marked the end of Qatar's isolation, thus paving the way for a resumption of relations between the UAE and Turkey. After the Summit, al-Nahyan flew to Cairo where he met President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who strongly encouraged him to begin a new chapter with Turkey.

At the same time, Egypt's intelligence service, Mukhabarat al-Amma, engaged in secret talks with its Turkish counterpart, the Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatıı. However, it was al-Nahya's meeting with the Turkish intelligence Chief, Hakan Fidan, in Cairo a few weeks later that achieved the first results. 

That meeting was organized by the Chief of the Mukhabarat al-Amma and by Abbas Kamel, al-Sisi's regional Director, along with Ahmed Hosni, the strongman of Jordanian Dayirat al-Mukhabarat al-Amma, that King Abdallah II had sent from Amman. Since then, there were eight additional meetings between Turkey and Abu Dhabi, which then led to the aforementioned meeting of President Erdogan with al-Nahyan, with the possibility of holding a future Summit between them.

This rapprochement still has difficulty hiding the deep divide between the two countries on key regional issues such as their respective positions on Syria and Libya, in particular. While they have managed to find some common ground for understanding - ending smear campaigns and trade blockades; resuming visa issuance; direct air links and the return of Ambassadors - President Erdogan and al-Nahyan are simply keeping quiet about their current irreconcilable differences.

Political considerations are put aside to facilitate future UAE’s investment in Turkey. 

On August 25, the Emirates’ Group International Holding CO announced it would invest massively in Turkey's health and agrifood industries, while it seems that the sovereign fund Abu Dhabi Investment Authority is willing to lend Turkey 875 million US dollars.

Is it just business? Russia is investigating. 

 

Professor Valori is President of the International World Group