Merkel hits out over US tapping of her phone

GERMANY has been told the United States may have tapped into Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone.

Mrs Merkel called President Barack Obama last night to demand an immediate clarification, her spokesman said.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Mr Obama had assured Mrs Merkel that the US was not monitoring her communications.

But the strongly worded statement by Mrs Merkel’s spokesman suggested that Germany was not fully satisfied. It demanded an “immediate and comprehensive” clarification of US surveillance practices.

“She made clear that she views such practices, if proven true, as completely unacceptable and condemns them unequivocally,” the statement read.

“Between close friends and partners, as Germany and the US have been for decades, there should not be such monitoring of the communications of a government leader. This would be a grave breach of trust. Such practices should be immediately stopped.”

The news broke as Secretary of State John Kerry, on a visit to Rome, faced fresh questions about mass spying on European allies, based on revelations from Edward Snowden, the fugitive former US intelligence operative granted asylum in Russia.

French president François Hollande is pressing for the U.S. spying issue to be put on the agenda of a summit of European leaders starting on Thursday. French newspaper LeMonde reported earlier this week that the National Security Agency had collected tens of thousands of French phone records.

Four months ago, Mr Obama defended US anti-terror tactics in Berlin standing beside Mrs Merkel, saying that Washington did not spy on ordinary citizens.