Turkey has more spies in Germany than Stasi had during Cold War: expert

The Turkish intelligence service currently employs more operatives in Germany than the East German spy agency did at the height of the Cold War, according to a German expert on espionage. The comment was made following the disclosure that Turkey maintains close to 6,000 informants and other intelligence operatives in Germany. An unnamed German security official told German newspaper Die Welt on Monday that the informants are operational throughout Germany and are handled by Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization, known as MİT.

According to Die Welt, many of these informants are tasked with keeping tabs on Germany’s large Kurdish community, which Ankara views as domestic threats to Turkish national security. More recently, however, MİT operatives in Germany have been instructed to infiltrate groups of supporters of the charismatic Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen who lives in the United States. A former ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Gülen and his millions of supporters around the world now oppose the Turkish government and are described as terrorists by Ankara. President Erdoğan has personally accused “Gülenists” of orchestrating the failed July 15 coup in Turkey. In addition to infiltration, MİT informants in Germany are allegedly engaged in psychological operations against perceived opponents of the Turkish government, and sometimes engage in blackmail and intimidation of targeted individuals or groups, according to Die Welt.

Erich Schmidt-Eenboom, one of Germany’s best known independent researchers on intelligence, and a widely published author, said he was surprised that the number of alleged MİT operatives in Germany is this high. If the number of 6,000 operatives is accurate, said Schmidt-Eenboom, it would place the MİT above the level of the Stasi during the Cold War. He was referring to the Ministry for State Security, the intelligence agency of communist-era East Germany, which was known for its extensive networks of informants during the Cold War. Schmidt-Eenboom said that, according to Stasi records, the agency handled approximately 10,000 operatives in West Germany, a country that at the time had a population of 60 million. In contrast, the 6,000 MİT operatives in Germany are primarily tasked with monitoring the Turkish and Kurdish immigrant community there, which numbers no more than 3 million. Consequently, said Schmidt-Eenboom, there are 500 potential human targets for each present-day MİT operative, whereas there were 6,000 West German citizens for every Stasi operative during the Cold War.

The article in Die Welt did not specify whether the alleged MİT informants are paid agents or simply supporters of the Turkish government who have volunteered their services. As intelNews reported earlier this week, some members of the German Bundestag’s Committee on Parliamentary Oversight, including its chairman, Clemens Binninger, plan to launch an official investigation into the activities of Turkish intelligence in Germany. Of particular interest to the committee is the alleged cooperation between German and Turkish intelligence agencies following the failed coup in Turkey this past July.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 26 August 2016 | Permalink