Germany Accuses Turkey of Targeting Dissidents with Intelligence Operations

Turk­ish intel­li­gence oper­a­tions in Ger­many have prompt­ed seri­ous secu­ri­ty con­cerns, accord­ing to a new gov­ern­ment assess­ment. On June 13, 2025, Nordic Mon­i­tor report­ed that Ger­many’s Fed­er­al Office for the Pro­tec­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion accused Turk­ish intel­li­gence of con­duct­ing covert oper­a­tions with­in Ger­man bor­ders, tar­get­ing oppo­si­tion groups and dias­po­ra orga­ni­za­tions crit­i­cal of Ankara through sur­veil­lance net­works and influ­ence cam­paigns that endan­ger pub­lic secu­ri­ty. The arti­cle begins:

A Ger­man gov­ern­ment report has accused Turk­ish intel­li­gence of oper­at­ing covert­ly with­in its bor­ders, tar­get­ing oppo­si­tion groups and dias­po­ra orga­ni­za­tions crit­i­cal of Ankara. The claims are detailed in the 2024 annu­al report by the Fed­er­al Office for the Pro­tec­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion (BfV), which describes ongo­ing sur­veil­lance and influ­ence efforts by Turkey’s Nation­al Intel­li­gence Orga­ni­za­tion, MİT.

Read more: https://nordicmonitor.com/2025/06/germany-accuses-turkey-of-endangering-public-security-and-covert-operations-targeting-dissidents/

Key Points

• The Union of Inter­na­tion­al Democ­rats (UID), described as Erdo­gan’s “long arm” in Europe, mobi­lized Turk­ish dias­po­ra vot­ers dur­ing May 2023 elec­tions and attempts to shape polit­i­cal opin­ion in Germany.
• Turk­ish intel­li­gence uses diplo­mat­ic per­son­nel, infor­mal col­lab­o­ra­tors, and vol­un­tary infor­mants to col­lect data on crit­ics, with infor­ma­tion trans­mit­ted to Ankara for arrests and trav­el bans.
• The Gülen move­ment remains a pri­or­i­ty tar­get for Turk­ish sur­veil­lance despite oper­at­ing legal­ly in Ger­many, with mem­bers in edu­ca­tion­al, media, and busi­ness sec­tors par­tic­u­lar­ly affected.
• Ger­man author­i­ties warn that intel­li­gence col­lect­ed in Ger­many forms the basis for legal actions in Turkey, with indi­vid­u­als fac­ing reper­cus­sions when trav­el­ing between the countries.

UID and Turkish Influence: AKP’s Diaspora Strategy Unveiled

The Union of Inter­na­tion­al Democ­rats (UID) has emerged as a key instru­ment of Turk­ish state influ­ence, with Ger­man intel­li­gence iden­ti­fy­ing it as the lead­ing con­duit for Ankara’s efforts to mobi­lize Turk­ish com­mu­ni­ties abroad under the ban­ner of nation­al­ist and AKP-aligned mes­sag­ing. The UID has engaged in over 1,000 joint activ­i­ties with mosques and NGOs, reveal­ing a strat­e­gy of embed­ding polit­i­cal objec­tives with­in reli­gious net­works such as DITIB and IGMG.

Its ambi­tion extends well beyond Europe: plans to open a Los Ange­les branch under the lead­er­ship of a Gray Wolves vet­er­an sug­gest a broad­en­ing agen­da to reshape dias­po­ra iden­ti­ties glob­al­ly. This pat­tern of ide­o­log­i­cal out­reach is rein­forced by Pres­i­dent Erdoğan’s per­son­al appear­ance at UID events, sig­nal­ing high-lev­el sup­port. The orga­ni­za­tion’s recent lead­er­ship shift to a for­mer ultra­na­tion­al­ist move­ment mem­ber fur­ther entrench­es its align­ment with hard‑right Turk­ish ide­ol­o­gy. UID has also been impli­cat­ed in secret elec­tion mobi­liza­tion efforts in Ger­many, work­ing in con­cert with Islamist and nation­al­ist groups to sway dias­po­ra voters.

These activ­i­ties reflect a broad­er pat­tern of author­i­tar­i­an soft pow­er that lever­ages cul­tur­al and reli­gious insti­tu­tions for polit­i­cal ends—mirroring dias­po­ra strate­gies used by Rus­sia and Iran, with Diyanet-dri­ven mosque net­works act­ing as crit­i­cal nodes.

External References:

• Weaponiz­ing the Dias­po­ra: Erdoğan and the Turks in Europe
• Turkey Is Expand­ing Its Dias­po­ra Engage­ment to Pro­mote Polit­i­cal Power
• Pres­i­den­cy of Reli­gious Affairs – Wikipedia

Disclaimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.