Expulsion of US spy chief inevitable: Germany

Iran Press TV

Fri Jul 11, 2014 3:33PM GMT

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has defended the government's decision to expel the CIA station chief in Berlin as an inevitable response to fresh allegations of US spying.

Steinmeier made the comments on Friday a day after the top US intelligence official at the American Embassy in Berlin was asked to leave the country.

'Our decision to ask the current representative of the US intelligence services to leave Germany is the right decision, a necessary step and a fitting reaction to the break of trust which has occurred,' said Steinmeier, adding that this 'was unavoidable, in my opinion."

The German top diplomat continued by saying that Berlin and Washington need to revive their transatlantic partnership on the basis of mutual trust.

The remarks by Steinmeier come amid an espionage scandal that has soured relations between Germany and the United States.

On July 9, German police officers raided properties in the Berlin area on 'initial suspicion of activity for an intelligence agency.' German media reported that the man being investigated was a soldier in the German army who had aroused the suspicion of the country's military counter-intelligence agency because of his close contacts with US spies.

A week earlier, an employee of Germany's foreign intelligence service, the BND, was arrested on charges of spying for the US over a period of years.

The latest espionage cases come as a German parliamentary inquiry is currently being held to assess the extent of spying by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and its partners on Germans, and whether German intelligence aided the activities.

Last month, German federal prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into alleged unlawful US surveillance of Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone communications.

CAH/AB/SS