The German weekly said that the information was based on documents released by the fugitive former National Security Agency (NSA) operative Snowden, who has taken refuge in Russia. Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan inspects an honour guard during a welcoming ceremony. Credit:AP It claimed the NSA placed "Turkey at the level of Venezuela, and even ahead of Cuba, in terms of US interest in intelligence collection". Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc told reporters in Ankara that "the US charge d'affaires has been summoned to the foreign ministry and an explanation demanded." The new US ambassador to Turkey, John Bass, is yet to arrive in Ankara.

The Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement after the meeting that it had asked the US authorities to provide a satisfactory explanation for the "grave allegations". Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden: leaks attributed to him have caused a diplomatic rift between Turkey and the US. Credit:NBC "If the allegations are true, it is obvious that these activities cannot be accepted and do not comply with the friendship between the two countries." "The United States is expected to investigate the said allegations, and if they are true, terminate its activities targeting our state institutions and foreign missions." President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who last week switched from the job of premier which he held for over a decade, said he would be discussing the claims at the NATO summit in Wales and UN general assembly this month.

"All countries with established intelligence services do it all the time, but how they do it and what they reveal is important," he said. Der Spiegel said the NSA began a major surveillance operation in 2006 aimed at hacking into the computers of Turkey's leadership. The aim was to glean information about the strategic intentions of the Turkish leadership under Erdogan. It said that the United States also spied on Turkey's embassy in Washington and its mission at the United Nations in New York. But Der Spiegel also said that at the same time there had been very tight cooperation between the US and Turkey on sharing intelligence, particularly on Kurdish militants waging an insurgency in Turkey's southeast.

It said that the US had been able to keep Turkey informed of the location of Kurdish militant leaders on an hourly basis by tracking their mobile phones. AFP