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Turkish, German spies to meet

August 19, 2014

The German and Turkish intelligence heads will meet to discuss reports that Berlin routinely spied on its NATO partner. On Monday, Turkey's Foreign Ministry summoned the German ambassador in Ankara, Eberhard Pohl.

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BND
Image: picture-alliance/dpa

Turkey's state-run news agency Anadolu reported that the chiefs of the two countries' spy agencies had agreed to meet after Turkey's Ahmet Davutoglu spoke by phone with Frank-Walter Steinmeier, his German counterpart, whose office confirmed that the two foreign ministers engaged in a "long talk."

A spokeswoman for Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the BND, would neither confirm nor deny the meeting to news agencies on Tuesday.

Turkish officials have demanded an explanation after news magazine Der Spiegel reported that Germany had repeatedly eavesdropped on officials from the country. Anakara called the spying "unacceptable."

Over the weekend, Spiegel reported that the BND had spied on Turkey since 2009 and that the operations likely continued. Spiegel also reported that the BND had intercepted phone calls to Turkish officials by US Secretary of State John Kerry and his immediate predecessor, Hillary Clinton.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokeswoman, Christiane Wirtz, has said that a special German parliamentary committee would consider the spying allegations and that the government had informed the panel of some of the claims last month.

mkg/msh (AFP, dpa)