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US 'may have spied on Merkel'

October 23, 2013

Chancellor Angela Merkel has telephoned US President Barack Obama to ask for an explanation about allegations that she was spied upon. Berlin said it had received information that Merkel’s cellphone was being monitored.

https://p.dw.com/p/1A5E0
Angela Merkel (Photo: Soeren Stache/dpa
Image: picture-alliance/dpa

The German government had been given information that US intelligence was spying on the mobile phone communications of Chancellor Angela Merkel, her spokesman said on Wednesday.

"The chancellor today telephoned President Obama" and "made clear that she unequivocally disapproves of such practices, should they be confirmed, and regards them as completely unacceptable," the chancellor's spokesman Steffen Seibert said. The allegations originally surfaced in the news magazine Spiegel.

The White House, meanwhile, said Obama had assured Merkel that US intelligence agencies was not spying on her.

"The US is not monitoring and will not monitor communications of the chancellor," spokesman Jay Carney said.

rc/tj (dpa, AFP, Reuters)