BERLIN: US intelligence spied on former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder from 2002, NDR television reported, adding fuel to the flames of a row over spying on incumbent Angela Merkel.
Schroeder, the Social Democrat chancellor who served from 1998 to 2005, appears on a list of names of people and institutions put under surveillance by the US National Security Agency (NSA) from 2002, at the start of his second mandate as German head of state. At the time Germany was opposing intervention in Iraq.
Schroeder said he was unsurprised by the latest spying report. “At the time the idea would never have occurred to me, but now it doesn’t surprise me,” he told NDR and the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily.
US President Barack Obama in a recent interview assured that Merkel was no longer under surveillance. His Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged on Friday that relations with Germany had gone through a “rough period” over the NSA snooping but said that shared interests would help put ties back on track. AFP
