Turkey infuriated by tapping claims amid Berlin, Gülenist spying allegations

In this July 8, 2013 file picture the BND monitoring base in Bad Aibling, near Munich, Germany is photographed. AP Photo

The Turkish government has toughened its stance on Germany’s alleged spying on Ankara, a NATO ally, while also vowing to take legal action over claims that the so-called “parallel structure” wiretapped a key governmental agency.

“The Foreign Ministry has been working on Germany’s wiretapping,” Energy and Natural Resources Minister Taner Yıldız told reporters Aug. 18. “It is an unacceptable situation.”

Earlier, over the weekend, a senior executive of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) used more cautious wording when asked to comment on a report by German weekly Der Spiegel which said the German secret service, the BND, has been spying on its NATO ally since 2009.

“I am of the opinion that this needs to be taken seriously,” AKP Deputy Chair Mehmet Ali Şahin said Aug. 17.

“Definitely, our government and Foreign Ministry will carry out the necessary research about the allegations in the magazine,” he added. Nonetheless, he also said Spiegel’s story needs to be approached “cautiously,” recalling the rocky relationship between the prominent news magazine and the AKP.

During his victorious presidential election campaign, President-elect Recep Tayyip Erdoğan launched repeated attacks against Der Spiegel after the magazine hugely irritated the ruling party with a major cover story – written in both German and Turkish – that was sharply critical of Erdoğan’s strongman rule.

“Der Spiegel is not a magazine that sees favorable dreams about Turkey. It makes very unfair news about the AKP and especially about Recep Tayyip Erdoğan,” Şahin said.

German officials’ reported...

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