Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a ceremony in Eskisehir, Turkey, March 17, 2017. Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Presidential Palace/Handout via REUTERS

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday accused a jailed Turkish-German journalist of being a terrorist agent in comments likely to cause further unease in Berlin over the incident.

Erdogan, who was speaking at a meeting of an Islamic foundation in Istanbul, said the reporter, Deniz Yucel of Germany’s Die Welt newspaper, would be tried by Turkey’s independent judiciary.

Authorities arrested Yucel, a dual Turkish and German national, last month on charges of propaganda in support of a terrorist organization and inciting the public to violence.

He was initially detained after he reported on emails that a leftist hacker collective had purportedly obtained from the private account of Berat Albayrak, Turkey’s energy minister and Erdogan’s son-in-law.

(This version of the story corrects to remove reference to Erdogan quote “Thank God” that was not related to arrest in headline, paragraph 1)