Erdogan’s Spies Track Regime Opponents on German Soil

Erdogan’s Spies Track Regime Opponents on German Soil
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Erdogan’s Spies Track Regime Opponents on German Soil

Erdogan’s Spies Track Regime Opponents on German Soil

Hussein Demir, a former law professor at the University of Ankara, sat inside a Turkish cafe in the Spandau district of Berlin, with his friend Omar, a Turkish businessman, drinking coffee and whispering.

As I joined them, the conversation moved from Turkish to English. The two men seemed more comfortable talking in a language that the cafe owners could not understand. They told me that they avoid speaking aloud in Turkish when they are in places frequented by Turks. Even when they speak English, they are always wary of what they say.

Hussein and Omar, who declined to have their real names published, are political exiles who arrived in Germany in 2017, less than a year after the failed coup attempt in Turkey. Hussein was dismissed from his job following the coup and decided to leave the country, fleeing the wave of arrests that targeted judges, professors, and public sector employees.

The academic does not hide that he belongs to the Fatah Allah Gulen movement, the Turkish cleric who lives in exile in the United States and who is accused by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of masterminding the 2016 coup attempt. But he says, his affiliation with Gulen has nothing to do with politics, stressing that the movement is religious and social.

The coup attempt occurred on the night of August 15, 2016. Two weeks later, Hussein was on his way to Georgia, after he used his brother’s ID card to flee the country.

“My brother told me you must leave because they may torture you and they will not allow you to see a lawyer for 30 days, which is the period of pre-trial detention,” he recounts.

He moved from Georgia to East Africa, from where he sought asylum in Germany in October 2017, after his passport was about to expire.

As for Omar, he also left Turkey after the arrest of his father, who assumed a senior position in the country. But he was more fortunate than others, because he managed to enter Europe without much difficulty as he was married to a European.

But the two men’s concerns did not end with leaving Turkey. They are always worried about being chased.

In 2017, when Hussein arrived in Germany, the German Ministry of Immigration and Refugees was struggling to maintain its credibility, following the scandal of the expulsion of more than 15 Turkish translators who were working for it. Those turned to be spies in Ankara, conveying confidential information to the Turkish embassy in Berlin about asylum-seekers.

However, the Immigration Service confirms that it has since become vigilant about this matter. In a written response to Asharq Al-Awsat, a spokesman for the department said that the applicant “has the right to report any information in this regard to the security services so that appropriate steps can be taken, and he can also request a different interpreter if he has a valid reason.”

These concerns have prompted Hussein Demir to refuse to be interviewed in the Turkish language, and asked to speak in English instead.

“I asked to have my interview done in English because I was afraid of the translator,” he said. “They understood my concerns and I felt safer to speak through an English rather than a Turkish translator.”

Expert in Turkish intelligence affairs Eric Schmidt-Eenboom told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Immigration and Refugee Service was one of the places where Ankara was targeting to recruit agents.

He added that Turkey uses the information leaked about the refugees, not only to chase the families of those who remain in the country, but also to refute the reasons that prompted them to seek asylum.

In 2014 and 2015, Turkish refugees in Germany accounted for 1,800 asylum seekers, most of them Kurds, according to official figures obtained by Asharq Al-Awsat from the Immigration Department.

Those numbers have increased significantly to reach 5,700 applicants in 2016 and 15,000 last year.

As the number of refugees increased, so did that of Turkish agents spying on opponents.

Schmidt-Eenboom, who has written a book on Turkish intelligence work in Europe, estimates that there are more than 8,000 Turkish agents in Germany, in addition to hundreds of spies directly affiliated with Turkish intelligence, who recruit agents on German soil.

“There is an unknown number of Turkish intelligence elements, many of whom reside in Germany, who work through the Turkish embassy,” he says.

Indeed, the Turkish authorities arrested a number of citizens who hold dual German-Turkish citizenship upon their return to Ankara, which caused in the past a lot of tension between the two countries.

Turkey has asked Germany to hand over a number of wanted persons it considers as “terrorists”. During a visit to Berlin in 2018, Erdogan handed the list again to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

But Berlin has rejected these requests. Instead, the German police moved to warn the people whose names are on the list against returning to Turkey because they might get arrested.

If Turkish translators play a role in spying on opponents, the imams assume a bigger and more important task in these operations.

According to Schmidt-Eenboom, nearly 700 Turkish imams who are deployed in more than 900 mosques of what is known as the DITIB - the Islamic Union for Religious Affairs in Germany - play an important role in identifying agents to recruit them.

“These imams exchange information with the Turkish circles and they mediate between Turkish informants in Germany and Erdogan’s government in Ankara,” he says.

The German authorities are aware of the work assumed by those imams.

In 2017, Berlin tried to open an investigation against 19 Turkish imams on suspicion of spying on opponents. But the story sparked a lot of political controversy, and before the prosecution could issue arrest warrants, Ankara had withdrawn the imams and returned them to Turkey.

In an attempt to address this matter, Germany is seeking to introduce laws that prevent the arrival of imams from abroad, but instead, training clerics in Germany to preach sermons in German, not Turkish.

The Ministry of Interior also tried to implement a “tax” on mosques, similar to that collected from Christians to finance churches, in an attempt to reduce Turkish influence and funding. But the proposal was rejected by the Muslim community in Germany and was put on hold.

In 2017, the Hamburg Supreme Court sentenced a 32-year-old man to two years in prison for spying on Kurdish opponents in favor of Turkish intelligence. Initially, the charges also included planning to kill a Turkish dissident, but the prosecution was unable to prove this claim.

However, Turkish intelligence has considered resorting to kidnappings and murders of its opponents in Germany, according to German expert Schmidt-Eenboom.

Although Germany does not take political measures to put pressure on Turkey in order to avoid escalating tensions, especially with Erdogan's continued threat to send a new wave of refugees to Europe, it may consider a different strategy now after it assumed the rotating European Union presidency.

In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, member of the German Parliament Frank Schwabe said that his country could resort to threatening to expel Turkey from the European Council if it refuses to submit to the decisions of the Human Rights Council in Strasbourg, which is currently listening to a range of issues related to the prosecution of Turks only because they are opposed to the regime in Ankara.

It would not be in Turkey’s interest to exit the European Council, Schwabe noted, adding that he believed that such threats would push Ankara to stop chasing its opponents abroad.

Turkey joined the European Council in the 1950s shortly after its founding, and its expulsion from it may have major repercussions in terms of its relationship with the European Union.



Where Things Stand in the US-China Trade War

OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: The container ship CMA CGM Osiris arrives at the Port of Oakland on April 09, 2025 in Oakland, California.  Justin Sullivan/Getty Images/AFP
OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: The container ship CMA CGM Osiris arrives at the Port of Oakland on April 09, 2025 in Oakland, California. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images/AFP
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Where Things Stand in the US-China Trade War

OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: The container ship CMA CGM Osiris arrives at the Port of Oakland on April 09, 2025 in Oakland, California.  Justin Sullivan/Getty Images/AFP
OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: The container ship CMA CGM Osiris arrives at the Port of Oakland on April 09, 2025 in Oakland, California. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images/AFP

US President Donald Trump has ramped up his trade war against China, further raising import tariffs on Beijing to 125 percent despite pausing them for other countries.

The move came hours after China announced reciprocal action against the United States in response to a previous levy hike.

AFP looks at how the escalating trade war between the world's two biggest economies is playing out -- and what impact it might have:

What actions has Trump taken so far?

Trump said Wednesday that the US would raise tariffs on Chinese imports to a staggering 125 percent, citing a "lack of respect" from Beijing.

The announcement came as the mercurial president announced a halt on tariffs for other nations for 90 days, following panic on global markets.

The new levy on China marked the latest salvo in a brewing tit-for-tat trade war between the two global superpowers.

A previous round of US tariffs had come into force earlier on Wednesday, jacking up duties on China to 104 percent.

As well as the blanket levies, China is also under sector-specific tariffs on steel, aluminium and car imports.

How has China responded?

China has vowed to fight the measures "to the end" and so far has unveiled reciprocal tariffs each time Trump has upped the ante.

Responding to the 104 percent duties on Wednesday, Beijing said it would raise its own tariffs on US imports from 34 percent to 84 percent, effective from Thursday.

It also said it had filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO), citing "bullying" tactics by the Trump administration.

China had not responded to the latest hike in tariffs to 125 percent levies as of Thursday morning.

But its countermeasures have begun to step outside the economic sphere, with government departments warning citizens of the "risks" of travelling to the US or studying in parts of the country.

And while Beijing has blasted the US with fiery rhetoric, it has continued to urge "equal dialogue" to resolve the trade spat.

Zhiwei Zhang, chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management, said China had sent a "clear signal" that it would not back down, adding that there was "(no) quick and easy way out" of the conflict.

Haibin Zhu, chief China economist at J.P. Morgan, agreed, saying "the bar for a possible deal is high".

- Why is China so vulnerable to tariffs? -

Trade between the world's two largest economies is vast.

Sales of Chinese goods to the US last year totaled more than $500 billion -- 16.4 percent of the country's exports, according to Beijing's customs data.

And China imported $143.5 billion in goods from the United States in 2024, according to the office of the US Trade Representative.

That trade was dominated by agricultural products, primarily oilseeds and grains, according to the US-China Business Council. Oil and gas, pharmaceuticals and semiconductors are also among major US exports to China.

Beijing has long drawn Trump's ire with a trade surplus with the United States that reached $295.4 billion last year, according to the US Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Chinese leaders have been reluctant to disrupt the status quo, in part because the country's export-driven economy is particularly sensitive to vicissitudes in international trade.

US duties also threaten to harm China's fragile post-Covid economic recovery as it struggles with a debt crisis in the property sector and persistently low consumption -- a downturn Beijing had sought to slow with broad fiscal stimulus last year.

But an intensified trade war will likely mean China cannot peg its hopes for strong economic growth this year on its exports, which reached record highs in 2024.

What impact will US tariffs have?

The head of the WTO said Wednesday that the US-China tariff war could cut trade in goods between the two countries by 80 percent.

Given the two economic giants account for three percent of world trade, the conflict could "severely damage the global economic outlook", Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said.

Analysts expect the levies to take a significant chunk out of China's GDP, which Beijing's leadership hope will grow five percent this year.

Likely to be hit hardest are China's top exports to the United States -- everything from electronics and machinery to textiles and clothing, according to the Peterson Institute of International Economics.

And because of the crucial role Chinese goods play in supplying US firms, the tariffs may also hurt American manufacturers and consumers, analysts have warned.

Paul Ashworth, chief North America economist at Capital Economics, said it was "difficult to see either side backing down in the next few days".

But, he added, "talks will eventually happen, although a full rollback of all the additional tariffs... appear unlikely".