Thursday, October 24– U.S President Barack Obama denies spying of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone calls when she made call to Obama for asking about the reports of NSA spying of her phone calls.
Furious German officials said that U.S. intelligence agencies may have been monitoring German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone, and the German leader spoke to President Obama on Wednesday about the issue, according to her spokesman.
Angela Merkel told Obama that, if the accusations are confirmed, she “unequivocally disapproves of such practices and sees them as completely unacceptable,” her spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said in a highly unusual late-night statement.
“Between close friends and partners … there should be no such monitoring of the communication of a head of government. That would be a grave breach of trust,” Seibert said, calling for any monitoring to halt immediately.
The German magazine SPIEGEL was reporting about the spying of phone calls of Angela Merkel. After the information was examined by the German’s foreign intelligence agency, the Federal Intelligence Service (BND), and the Federal Office for Information Security, Berlin seems to have found their suspicions plausible enough to confront the US government.
In response to the allegations, a spokeswoman for the US National Security Council told SPIEGEL: “The President assured the Chancellor that the United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of Chancellor Merkel.” The spokeswoman did not wish to specify whether this statement applied to the past.
Read below the statement of white house regarding this phone call.
23 Oct 2013White House on Obama’s Call with German Chancellor Merkel
The White House issues a summary of President Obama’s phone conversation with Germany Chancellor Merkel regarding allegations that the U.S. intercepted communications of Chancellor Merkel.
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
October 23, 2013Readout of the President’s Phone Call with Chancellor Merkel of Germany
Today, President Obama and Chancellor Merkel spoke by telephone regarding allegations that the U.S. National Security Agency intercepted the communications of the German Chancellor. The President assured the Chancellor that the United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of Chancellor Merkel.
The United States greatly values our close cooperation with Germany on a broad range of shared security challenges. As the President has said, the United States is reviewing the way that we gather intelligence to ensure that we properly balance the security concerns of our citizens and allies with the privacy concerns that all people share.
Both leaders agreed to intensify further the cooperation between our intelligence services with the goal of protecting the security of both countries and of our partners, as well as protecting the privacy of our citizens.
