Top U.S. intelligence official in Germany has left the country following the request from the German government, Foreign Ministry confirmed Thursday.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition government has demanded the top CIA official to leave the country last week after the authorities revealed that two German officials had carried out espionage activities in the country for the U.S. secret services.
“We confirm that the person has left the country,” a spokesperson for the German Foreign Ministry told Anadolu Agency on condition of anonymity.
Local media reported that the top U.S. intelligence official took a flight on Thursday from Frankfurt International Airport.
German authorities had revealed early this month that an employee of the German secret service BND and an official from the Defense Ministry had passed on information and secret documents to the U.S. secret services since 2012.
Germany has demanded the top U.S. intelligence official in Germany to leave the country, but stopped short of declaring him persona non grata.
Germany’s government spokesman Steffan Seibert told reporters on Wednesday that the U.S. and Germany still have deep differences on the activities of American secret services.
“We want to continue our cooperation as partners. We need this cooperation,” Seibert said. “For us this can only be developed on the basis of confidence. We have to bridge deep differences. We are working for that,” he stressed.
U.S.-Germany relations had suffered significant damage late last year after the alleged surveillance of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone by the U.S.' National Security Agency, or NSA.
U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations last year showed that NSA had long monitored Chancellor Merkel’s private mobile phone.
Snowden also claimed that the NSA had collected about half a billion communications connections each month from Germany.
