Bundesnachrichtendienst

Germany's foreign intelligence agency has been spying on Turkey for nearly four decades, Focus magazine said on Aug. 23 in a report which could raise tensions further between the NATO allies.

The details about the duration of possible surveillance and on the decision-making surrounding it go further than first reports earlier this week.

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu called his German counterpart, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, late Aug. 18 to personally express his government’s anger after media reports claimed Germany’s intelligence agency had spied on Turkey, its NATO ally.

German Ambassador to Ankara Eberhard Pohl was summoned to the Turkish Foreign Ministry on Aug. 18 following media reports claiming German secret services have been eavesdropping on Turkey for some time. The Turkish Foreign Ministry asked for an explanation from the ambassador and said in a public statement that it would be “grave” if even only part of the media reports were true.

Any accuracy in reports that Germany has been spying on NATO ally Turkey are “worrying” and would pose “a grave situation” to the relationship between the two nations, the Foreign Ministry said in a strongly-worded statement released Aug. 18.

In spite the sanctions, Russia's President Vladimir Putin continues expanding his sphere of influence, concludes an analysis of the German intelligence, published in German media.

According to Suddeutsche Zeitung, quoted by Deutsche Welle, the foreign policy committee in the Bundestag discussed Bulgaria and the Russian interests in the beginning of July. 

The question to bear in mind, when reading this whole sorry tale, is this. If Americans are, on average, no stupider than Germans, then why are their intelligence services so stupid?

Berlin has denied media reports that the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) had been monitoring online activity in Greece, among other countries.

Speaking to journalists on Monday, Germany’s deputy government spokesman Georg Streiter said that although Greece was mentioned in internal BND documents, the country itself was not being monitored.