BERLIN, (Reuters) – Germany’s decision to ask the CIA station chief in Berlin to leave the country was an inevitable response to fresh allegations of U.S. spying on Berlin, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said yesterday.
Officials said the U.S. senior spy would be leaving soon.
“Our decision to ask the current representative of the U.S. intelligence services to leave Germany is the right decision, a necessary step and a fitting reaction to the break of trust which has occurred,” Steinmeier told reporters.
“Taking action was unavoidable, in my opinion. We need and expect a relationship based on trust.”
Steinmeier said a strong transatlantic partnership was especially important now given international crises. He would tell U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry when they meet in Vienna at the weekend for talks on Iran’s nuclear programme that Germany was eager to revive that partnership on the basis of mutual trust.
The scandal has chilled relations with Washington to levels not seen since Chancellor Angela Merkel’s predecessor opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. It follows allegations that Merkel herself was among thousands of Germans whose mobile phones were bugged by American agents.
Merkel has not had a phone conversation with U.S. President Barack Obama since Berlin asked the CIA station chief to leave, but the two are in close contact, a German government spokesman said on Friday.
“There has been no phone call between the chancellor and Washington and none is planned. But you know the chancellor and the American president are in good contact with each other,” Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert told a news conference.
Seibert said the government expected the U.S. intelligence representative to leave Germany “promptly”. The U.S. official has not been publicly named.
Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble stressed the importance of continuing the close relationship with Washington – while decrying the U.S. espionage activity: “Without the Americans we can’t do anything,” he said.
“The whole thing is nonsensical and stupid.”
ESPIONAGE ACTIVITY
The decision to order the CIA representative out came after dramatic reports of U.S. espionage activity in Germany.
On Wednesday, Berlin said it had discovered a suspected U.S. spy in the Defence Ministry. That came just days after a German foreign intelligence worker was arrested on suspicion of being a CIA informant and admitted passing documents to a U.S. contact.
Public outrage at the revelations put pressure on Merkel to take action against the United States.
Germany’s biggest selling newspaper, Bild, said Merkel had ordered German secret services to reduce cooperation with U.S. counterparts to a minimum, though Seibert denied the report.
