US Department of State Spokesperson John Kirby refused to comment during Thursday’s daily press briefing on a German magazine’s claim that the US’s National Security Agency (NSA) had spied on Hakan Fidan, the chief of the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MİT), in order to collect information on a high level security meeting about the possible Turkish intervention in Syria to protect a Turkish enclave there last year.
When asked about a report by the Germany-based Focus magazine asserting the NSA tapped Fidan’s phone and therefore collected the audio from the meeting, Kirby said:
We’re not going to comment publicly on every specific alleged intelligence or disclosure activity. I just – I would refer you to the National Security Agency for anything more.
