'US assurances on spying insufficient'
Iran Press TV
Sun Apr 6, 2014 3:36PM GMT
Germany has slammed the US for failing to provide sufficient assurances on its spying tactics against Berlin.
Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere has said that bilateral talks between Washington and Berlin are unlikely to make progress before a planned visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel to Washington in May.
De Maiziere said that Washington has provided "insufficient' amount of information about the spying activities of the US National Security Agency (NSA) against the German government.
"The information we have so far is insufficient," said de Maiziere who is a close ally of Chancellor Merkel.
He told the German magazine Der Spiegel that Berlin is in dark about the scope of NSA's spying on German targets including its leaders.
"If two thirds of what Edward Snowden maintains is true, or what has been put forward pertaining to him as a source, then I can only come to one conclusion … that the US actions are beyond all measure."
De Maiziere has expressed doubt skeptical that Merkel's meeting with US President Barack Obama in Washington would produce any tangible results over the US controversial spying.
"My expectations about the success of further talks are low."
American whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed in October 2013 that the NSA had spied on Merkel's mobile phone for as long as 10 years. Merkel had compared NSA's spying to the communist East German secret police, known as the Stasi.
Merkel has demanded answers from Obama following the revelations that NSA was spying monitoring his cell phone, warning that the action was a "grave breach of trust" between the two countries.
Der Spiegel had reported that the NSA had received a court order to spy on Merkel.
Apart from Merkel, the communications of millions of Germans were also monitored by the NSA.
In the wake of the spying scandal, Germany has been demanding a "no-spy deal."
The latest documents revealed by Snowden show that NSA's global spying web targeted 122 world leaders.
DDB/DDB
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