Germany’s spy chief on Tuesday admitted that the country has become a platform for the PKK terror organization’s fundraising and recruitment activities targeting Türkiye, Edneцs reports citing Anadolu Agency. 

“The PKK is organizing various fundraising campaigns in Germany, and then using this money to finance terror attacks in Türkiye,” Thomas Haldenwang, head of the German domestic intelligence agency BfV, told a news conference in Berlin.

He said the PKK terror organization is also using various associations in Germany to recruit young people as foreign fighters, who are then sent to Türkiye, Syria, or Iraq.

“The PKK remains an international terror organization, it continues violent attacks, killings in the region,” he stressed.

According to the BfV’s annual security report released on Tuesday, the PKK terror organization is the biggest foreign extremist group in the country, with around 14,500 followers.

The terrorist group raised an estimated €16.7 million ($17.8 million) in Germany last year, and also raised more than €30 million in Europe in various fundraising campaigns, the report said.

Since 2013, at least 295 foreign fighters from Germany traveled to northern Syria and Iraq where they received military training from PKK terrorists and took part in armed attacks in the region, according to the report.

(In northern Syria, the terrorist group PKK is called the YPG/PKK, as stressed by Turkish officials.)

At least 30 of these foreign fighters died in battle zones, while nearly 150 of them returned to Germany in recent years, the report said, without giving any further details.

The PKK, which is classified as an “ethno-nationalist” and “separatist” terrorist organization by the EU's law enforcement agency Europol, has been banned in Germany since 1993.

Although Türkiye has repeatedly called on its NATO ally Germany to take stronger action against the PKK, the terrorist group’s activities have been largely tolerated by authorities, and Berlin has been reluctant to do more to combat the group.

In its more than 35-year terror campaign, the PKK has been responsible for the deaths of at least 40,000 people, including women, children, and infants.