FILE PHOTO: German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer addresses a news conference a in Berlin, Germany, September 19, 2018. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany’s arch-conservative interior minister has expressed readiness to renegotiate a deal to transfer the domestic intelligence chief to the interior ministry, German news agency dpa reported on Friday.

It cited Horst Seehofer, whose Christian Social Union (CSU) is the Bavarian sister party of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, as saying that he would not rule out new talks on the unpopular deal.

The center-left Social Democrats (SPD) have demanded a renegotiation of the unpopular deal to remove Hans-Georg Maassen from the BfV spy agency over accusations he harbored far-right sympathies after he questioned the authenticity of a video showing far-rightists hounding migrants.

SPD leaders are under fire for accepting a deal that promoted Maassen to a senior job at the interior ministry.