Turkey's Spy Chiefs Advise Washington on Armenia
Guess who advises Washington on Armenia? Turkey's two spy chiefs.
The hosts walk through a revealing admission from U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, who said that whenever he has a question about Armenia or Azerbaijan he reaches out through Tom Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, to two trusted experts. Hovik lands the reveal slowly: those two experts are Hakan Fidan, the current foreign minister of Turkey and former head of its intelligence service, and Ibrahim Kalin, the current chief of Turkish intelligence. For an audience watching TRIPP and the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process unfold, this is a direct line from Washington’s thinking to Ankara’s deep state.
Asbed sets up the context by noting that Barrack is hardly a neutral broker, and Hovik drives home the implication: a transit and diplomatic framework being sold to Armenians as salvation is shaped by advice from current and former heads of Turkish intelligence.
The exchange ties into recurring Groong themes about who really steers regional policy in the South Caucasus and why framing matters. The hosts prefer the TRIPP label while noting the Azerbaijani-Turkish framing of the same corridor, and here they argue that the people advising Washington are precisely those with pan-Turanic strategic interests. Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, through Fidan and Kalin, is positioned as an architect rather than a bystander. For viewers trying to understand American policy toward Armenia and Azerbaijan, this short segment offers a memorable, specific hook: the advisors are not neutral analysts but Turkey’s intel chiefs.
Transcript
Hovik Manucharyan: Guess who are those two experts, Asbed?
Asbed Bedrossian: Tom Barrack is the U.S. ambassador in Turkey, a really, really good friend of Armenians, right?
Hovik Manucharyan: Yes. Yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: Who are they, Hovik?
Hovik Manucharyan: Well, one of the experts is named Hakan and the other is named Ibrahim. Hakan Fidan and İbrahim Kalın. Hakan Fidan is currently a foreign minister of Turkey. He was formerly head of the MIT, or MIT, the Turkish intelligence.
Asbed Bedrossian: Mm-hmm.
Hovik Manucharyan: and İbrahim Kalın was formerly senior advisor to Erdogan and is currently the chief of Turkish intelligence. So he has a comfortable old job.
Asbed Bedrossian: So these are the people who are advising Witkoff on how to deal with Armenia.
Hovik Manucharyan: former... Yes, these are the people. So all of these brainless Armenians, and I'm sorry, you know, who are cheering TRIPP, this project about TRIPP and how it's going to save Armenia, Do you realize that this policy is being controlled directly by, or advised and influenced directly by, two current and former heads,
Asbed Bedrossian: The deepest state of Turkey.
Hovik Manucharyan: heads of the intelligence of Turkey? Congratulations to us.