"Turkey and Russia react with fury to G20 spying revelations" is an article published by British The Guardian today on the on-going scandal relating to the G20 summit back in 2009.
"The Guardian revealed that the UK secret wiretapping agency, GCHQ, targeted Mehmet Şimşek, the Turkish finance minister and a former Merrill banker, during a G20 economics meeting hosted in London in September 2009. It also considered monitoring the communications of 15 named members of his staff and of Turkey's central bank. It is not clear which if any of the staff members was ultimately placed under surveillance. The goal was to collect information about the Turkish position on the reform of the global financial infrastructure in the wake of the world banking crisis," the article explains.
"Turkey and Russia have angrily rounded on the British government and demanded an explanation following revelations that their politicians and senior officials were spied on and bugged during the 2009 G20 summit in London," the author writes.
"The foreign ministry in Ankara said it was unacceptable that the British government had intercepted phonecalls and monitored the computers of Turkey's finance minister as well as up to 15 others from his visiting delegation. If confirmed, the eavesdropping operation on a Nato ally was "scandalous", it added," the article reports.
The descpription of Turkey's fury is followed by the quote from the offical statement: "The allegations in the Guardian are very worrying … If these allegations are true, this is going to be scandalous for the UK. At a time when international co-operation depends on mutual trust, respect and transparency, such behaviour by an allied country is unacceptable."
Russian officials say that the Guardian revelation would further harm the struggling US-Russia relationship and cast a shadow over the upcoming G8 summit in Northern Ireland on Monday and Tuesday.
The article also quotes Alexey Pushkov, the head of the Duma's international affairs committee and one of the loudest anti-American voices in the Russian government, who took to Twitter to write: "Scandal! In 2009 at the G20, US and UK special services listened to Medvedev's telephone calls. The US denies it, but we can't believe that. That's complete fraud."
