German Chancellor Angela Merkel will visit Ukraine Saturday amid international tensions over fighting in the east of the country, Ukraine's foreign minister Pavlo Klimkin said.

"The visit is planned for the day before Ukraine's national holiday" on August 24, Klimkin told journalists, adding that the visit by the German leader would be "very interesting".

A German program to attract specially qualified workers from non-EU countries has netted just 170 successful candidates in its first year, official data showed Monday, sparking complaints from an employers group.

The group cited a number of obstacles to recruitment including difficulty in learning German; hurdles to the acceptance of foreign qualifications; inadequate marketing of the program; and shortcomings in Germany's drive to welcome foreigners.

Turkey said it had summoned the German ambassador Monday to demand an explanation following reports that Berlin has been spying on the country for years.

German weekly Der Spiegel reported on Sunday that the BND secret service had spied on Turkey since 2009 and had listened in on at least one telephone conversation including U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

The Turkish authorities will thoroughly investigate a report that Germany has been spying on its NATO ally since 2009, a senior official said Sunday, saying the claims need to be taken seriously.

German weekly Der Spiegel reported that the German secret service the BND has been spying on Turkey since 2009, as well as accidentally intercepting at least one telephone conversation of US Secretary of State John Kerry.

Germany is opposed to the formation of an independent state by Iraq's Kurds, who are currently battling Islamic State jihadists with Western help, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Sunday.

"An independent Kurdish state would further destabilize the region and trigger new tensions, maybe with the neighboring Iraqi state as well," he told the Bild newspaper in an interview.

In South Tyrol, Italy's German-speaking northern region, Teutonic efficiency meets Italian flair in a seemingly blissful union of lederhosen, "La Dolce Vita" and idyllic scenery. But for some, life is not so sweet.

Inspired by Scotland's independence referendum on September 18 and other restive minorities in Europe, and feeling the pinch from Italy's economic woes, strains in the century-old marriage are starting to show.

German intelligence listened in on at least one telephone conversation of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and has spied on NATO ally Turkey for years, Der Spiegel will report on Sunday.

The German weekly says the secret service BND intercepted a conversation involving Kerry "by accident" in 2013.

President Francois Hollande on Friday paid tribute to the hundreds of thousands of troops who, 70 years ago in World War II, launched the southern invasion of occupied France that opened up a second western front against Hitler's Nazis.

Joining Hollande for Friday's ceremonies were 15 leaders from France's former African colonies, in recognition of the key role soldiers from these countries played in liberating France, two months after D-Day smashed the first hole in Hitler's defenses.

Strife in Iraq is testing Germany's post-war restraint on weapons exports to war zones, as Berlin wages an agonized debate about arming Kurds battling Islamic State jihadists.

Fellow European heavyweights Britain and France have followed the United States in offering weapons to Kurdish fighters. But Germany, a major arms manufacturer, was still on the fence ahead of an EU crisis meeting on Iraq Friday.

German air force planes will deliver humanitarian aid to northern Iraq on Friday, media reported, as Chancellor Angela Merkel said Berlin was also considering sending weapons to help the embattled country.

Four German Transall C-160 military transporters, carrying 36 tons of mostly medical and food supplies, will fly via Turkey to the Kurdish city of Arbil, reported national news agency DPA.