Zee Media Bureau
Washington: A no-spy treaty with the United States is slated to be the top agenda when a German intelligence delegation will meet US spy chiefs in the White House on Wednesday to discuss the claims that the NSA spied on Chancellor Angela Merkel`s phone for a decade.
According to the chancellory, German foreign-policy adviser, Christoph Heusgen, and intelligence coordinator, Guenter Heiss, will meet today with US officials including Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and National Security Adviser Susan Rice, the Bloomberg News reported. to try to “rebuild trust,” the chancellery said.
The German delegation in US will wok on how to curb the intelligence gathering between the two allies by focussing on a "no-spy treaty", government spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters.
The meeting comes in the backdrop of worsening ties between the two allies as a report in the German magazine Der Spiegel claimed that Merkel`s name was on the list of a US listening station in Berlin called as SpecialCollection Service and that the monitoring of Merkel`s phone was beng done for a decade starting ffrom 2010.
The German delegation`s meeting with US intelligence officials will come as the US intelligence chief defended the eavesdropping on foreign leaders and rubbished the foreign media reports as completely false.
The Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper while testifying before US Congress said that it was imperative to keep a watch on foreign leaders` intentions.
Speaking before the panel of the House of Representatives, he said that it`s "kind of a basic tenet" of US intelligence-gathering to find out the intentions of foreign leaders.
The startling revelation that phones of several foreign leaders including that of US allies, Germany and France, were put on surveillance by the NSA was made after a former CIA contractor Edward Snowden revealed the classified information.
