The German newspaper Der Spiegel has discovered that Turkey, a NATO ally, was the target of US, UK and German espionage. In its August 2014 report headlined, “A Two-Faced Friendship: Turkey Is ‘Partner and Target’ for the NSA,” Der Spiegel scrutinized hundreds of thousands of pages of National Security Agency (NSA) documents leaked by Edward Snowden​.

There was no German apology, but instead, a distinction between “friend and ally,” implying that Turkey is an ally but not a friend.

Der Spiegel reporter Michael Sontheimer told Elmas Topcu, a journalist of Turkish origin, in an interview: “We studied Edward Snowden’s archives and found 20 very important documents attesting to the cooperation between Turkish intelligence and the NSA. These documents showed that the NSA on the one hand supported the Turkish intelligence service MIT and the Turkish Armed Forces intensively in their combat against the PKK [Kurdistan Workers Party], and on the other hand how American intelligence units and Washington had no confidence whatsoever in the Turkish government. They [Americans] succeeded in monitoring Turkish government computers by trying every conceivable method.”

Sontheimer stated in the interview that the US administration does not trust Turkey at all. The original Der Spiegel piece stated: “The degree to which the NSA surveils its partner is made clear in the National Intelligence Priorities Framework (NIPF), a document establishing US intelligence priorities. Updated and presented to the president every six months, the NIPF shows a country’s ‘standing’ from the perspective of the United States. In the April 2013 edition, Turkey is listed as one of the countries most frequently targeted by Washington for surveillance, with US intelligence services tasked with collecting data in 19 different areas of interest.”