Afghan trade minister says bugging affair is "over"

Kabul  -  Afghan Trade and Industry Minister Amin Farhang told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa in an interview Monday that as far as he was concerned the affair surrounding his being monitored by the German foreign intelligence service, the BND, was over.

Farhang said: "I do not want relations between Afghanistan and Germany to be disrupted. We owe Germany a lot. But I also do not want a repeat of such incidents."

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier had apologized to him on Sunday and assured him that "such things will never happen again."

However, Farhang also said: "Naturally, I am sad and disappointed that they invaded my private space," adding, he still did not know why BND had chosen to bug him. "They have not given me a reason. That hit me hardest because I spent half of my life in Germany."

Farhang stressed that contrary to German media reports, he no longer had a German passport.

"I was the first minister who gave up dual nationality after the new constitution was passed," he said and termed claims that he still had German citizenship "absurd." (dpa)