Germany tells Turkey not to spy on Turks living on its soil

Germany will not tolerate foreign espionage on its territory, the interior minister said on Tuesday, in a response to media reports that Turkish secret services were spying on supporters of the Gulen movement. Fethullah Gulen, a US-based Muslim cleric, is accused by Ankara of orchestrating a failed military coup last July. The Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and two broadcasters reported that Turkey’s National Intelligence Agency had given Germany’s foreign intelligence service a list of names of hundreds of supposed Gulen supporters. Interior Minster Thomas de Maiziere said that the lists would be looked at individually. “We have told Turkey several times that such [activity] is not acceptable,” he said. “German law applies here and citizens who live here won’t be spied on by foreign states.”