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. spy chief would be leaving the country 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."
He 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 have been 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.
The decision to order the CIA representative out came after dramatic reports of U.S. espionage activity in Germany.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article