German envoys are due to hold talks with US officials in Washington today on rebuilding a "basis of trust" after alleged US tapping of Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone in sweeping surveillance operations that have outraged Europe.
As spy claims ricocheted across the Atlantic in a row that has frazzled ties between US and European allies, two high-ranking Berlin officials will seek answers and fresh rules on intelligence cooperation, Merkel's spokesman said.
Steffen Seibert told reporters the talks were aimed at clarifying the allegations and working out "a new basis of trust and new regulation for our cooperation in this area."
"We are in a process of intensive contacts with US partners both at the intelligence as well as the political level," he said.
France, Italy and Spain have also protested after media reports, based on leaks from fugitive US analyst Edward Snowden, that Washington collected tens of millions of European telephone calls and online communications as part of anti-terror operations.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said the snooping, if confirmed, was "inappropriate and unacceptable between partners and friends" after a report alleged that more than 60 million telephone calls in Spain were spied on by the US National Security Agency (NSA) in a month.
But yesterday, US espionage chiefs turned the tables on European allies in the spat over intercepted phone records, saying in many cases it was European agencies -- not the NSA -- that gathered and shared them with America.
And they dismissed as "completely false" allegations that American spy agencies had swept up vast amounts of communications data.
France responded coolly, describing as "unlikely" the allegations that European spy agencies shared phone call records with US intelligence.
National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said in a statement that Obama and Merkel had recently agreed in a phone call "to intensify further the cooperation between US and German intelligence services".
Merkel's foreign policy adviser Christoph Heusgen and the secret service coordinator Guenter Heiss will take part in today's talks at the White House.
National Security Advisor Susan Rice, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and counter-terrorism advisor Lisa Monaco would meet the Germans, Hayden said.
"This process of clearing up the facts will last some time still," Seibert said, adding the heads of German foreign and domestic intelligence services would also travel to Washington in the coming days.
