Asked in March 2026 whether Turkey’s withdrawal of economic assets from Israel meant it was preparing to attack, Kiriakou answered that it did not, and offered a source from the night before: “I will let you in on a little secret. Last night I had dinner with two senior officials from the Turkish Foreign Ministry. And we talked about this very issue.”[1] The reaction he describes is the finding as much as the words are: “as soon as I brought it up, they both looked at each other and they both started smiling. And they said, ‘This is not going to happen. There is not going to be hostilities between Turkey and Israel.’”[1][2]
The conditional
What interested Kiriakou was the answer to the hypothetical, which he says had not occurred to him: “if the Israelis were to attack Turkey, Turkey would destroy them. And Turkey would not ask NATO to invoke Article 5.”[2][3]
Put to him that Israel might resort to the Samson option, he reported that the question had come up at the dinner and been discounted, on the ground that the war would be limited by design: Turkey “has no interest whatsoever in occupying Israel”, and the object would be “just to bloody Israel’s face and nose and tell them you stay on your side of the border and we’ll stay on ours.”[3] His own view of the likelihood is that Israel will not test it — “The Israelis do a lot of stupid things, but not something that stupid” — while noting Israel’s overthrow of Assad as an example of the stupid things it does do, and that attacking a NATO member is a different order of risk.[4]
The variance
Five months later, working through the Mecca Agreement, Kiriakou reasoned from the opposite premise — that Turkey could invoke Article 5, and that the United States would then theoretically have to declare war on Israel, an obligation he judged would never be honoured and would instead end NATO.[5] The two accounts are recorded as given. In March the point is that Turkey would not ask; in August it is that asking would break the alliance.
The most powerful opponent standing
Placing Turkey in the 2026 war, Kiriakou put its position in relative terms: “The Turks are probably the most militarily powerful country standing in opposition to Israel.”[6]
He did not extend the ranking into a prediction of war. Asked whether Turkey constituted a meaningful military, diplomatic or economic threat to Israel, he separated the three. Diplomatically the answer was yes — “I do believe diplomatically the Israelis have their hands full with the Turks, but that’s life” — with a suggestion attached: “Maybe the Israelis should try to to start getting along with people.” Militarily and economically the answer was no: “the the Turks aren’t going to invade Israel.”[7]
He also gave the collapse of the old friendship a downstream effect, noting that the former closeness between Israel and Turkey was “one of the reasons why the Greeks and the Palestinians were so close” — an alignment now complicated by the gas partnership that ties Athens to Israel against Turkish objections.[8]