I'm John Datser with my colleague, Senan Chidi.

He is the director of the Turkey program at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy,

writing most recently about a surprising event to me. The head of Turkish state security, the MIT,

meeting with a representative of Hamas, the gangster organization that is understood to have been, if not destroyed, certainly set back to the point that it is no longer capable of operating on the whole of the Gaza Strip and is in retreat and also being tracked down for decap everywhere.

But there is the meeting between MIT and Hamas. To what end? What explains this,

Senan? It's surprising to me. I mean, it is surprising, but it's also been going on for a very,

very long time. So obviously, we reported and wrote about this and the full implications. We had

Turkey's Chief of National Intelligence.

That would be the equivalent of the CIA director here, possibly,

or maybe the Director of National Intelligence level,

but he's the most senior intelligence official.

And, you know, they hosted Hamas's senior leadership in Turkey

to discuss, you know, the ongoing security situation in the Middle

East and, you know, how Turkey could help Hamas, if you can believe it, against ongoing

activities inside of Gaza vis-a-vis the Israeli military. And the Turkish official, Mr. Cullen,

the head of national intelligence, said that there would be more forthcoming information about, you know, how Turkey and Hamas would proceed.

That's all we know.

But this is, you know, the wider sort of so what here is is Turkey has been a main sort of major patron of Hamas for a couple of decades now,

with very real presence organizational establishment inside of Turkey,

with senior leadership that travels through Turkey frequently.

They're domiciled there in some cases.

Some of these senior leaders have access to Turkish passports,

...