Germany spied on Turkey for 40 years, says report
Print Edition
GERMANY’S foreign intelligence agency has been spying on Turkey for nearly four decades, Focus magazine has said in a report which could raise tensions further between the NATO allies.
The details about the duration of possible surveillance and the decision-making surrounding it go further than reports earlier last week.
Turkey summoned Germany’s ambassador in Ankara last Monday after media reports that Berlin had identified Ankara as a top target of surveillance in a government document from 2009 and had been spying on Turkey for years.
On Saturday, Focus magazine said the BND intelligence agency had been spying on Turkey since 1976 and that the German government under the then Social Democrat chancellor Helmut Schmidt had approved the step.
The magazine also cited government sources as saying the BND’s current mandate to monitor Turkish political and state institutions had been agreed by a government working group. That included representatives of the chancellor’s office, and the defense, foreign and economy ministries.
A spokesman for the German government declined to comment.
The report is a further embarrassment for Angela Merkel’s government which faces accusations of hypocrisy because of its outrage over allegations of widespread surveillance by the United States on Germans, including the tapping of the chancellor’s phone.
However, conservative lawmaker Hans-Peter Uhl told Focus there were “good reasons” for the BND to bug Turkey. He cited human trafficking, drugs and terrorism as issues of concern.
Der Spiegel quoted Turkey’s former deputy head of government Ertugrul Yalcinbayir as saying his country had long suspected they were being spied on by Germany and other nations. “Now we need a no-spy deal,” he said.
Germany had demanded a no-spy agreement with the US but Washington has resisted.
Germany told the top US spy in Germany to leave earlier this year after a double agent at the BND was unearthed.
Der Spiegel magazine reported that the BND also targeted Albania, another NATO member.
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