The United States promised on Friday to share more intelligence information with Germany, Berlin’s interior minister said after a White House meeting.
US officials pledged to begin a “declassification process,” so that German officials are better informed, German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich told reporters after the meeting.
He said the meetings had produced “concrete results,” such as agreement to scrap a 1960s NATO accord that allowed US intelligence agents to be active in Germany to defend troops stationed there.
Friedrich met with Lisa Monaco, President Barack Obama’s chief counterterrorism advisor, and Vice President Joe Biden.
Biden dropped by the meeting “to affirm our strong alliance and partnership with Germany and to discuss issues of mutual concern,” National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan told dpa.
Friedrich’s visit, which included a meeting earlier with US Attorney General Eric Holder but none of the US intelligence service heads, followed uproar in Germany over US whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations that the US National Security Agency (NSA) was spying on allied governments and their citizens through the so-called Prism programme.
The visit coincided with Snowden’s announcement that he would accept Russia’s offer of temporary asylum along with Moscow’s conditions that he stop leaking sensitive US intelligence.
The Washington Post, citing unnamed sources, reported on Friday that NSA officials were concerned that Snowden still possessed sensitive information on espionage operations against Chinese leaders and other critical targets.
The aim of Friedrich’s visit in Washington was to “restore lost trust,” his spokesman told dpa. “Germans are particularly sensitive when it comes to privacy and data protection issues.” Speaking to reporters at the Hotel Hyatt, Friedrich said that contrary to the NSA’s insistence that it was only collecting data about communication connections, in fact the agency had also gathered the substance of some communications.
At the same time, Friedrich offered understanding for the United States and its high security needs since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
“The programme is strictly focussed only on terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and organised crime,” Friedrich said.
Friedrich did not comment on whether the US had violated German law. He said there had been no industrial espionage against German firms and no arrangements between the NSA and German counterparts to spy on German citizens.
“I am very satisfied,” Friedrich said. “Everyone here in the United States understood that there is high sensitivity in Germany over protection of the private sphere.” The anxiety in Germany over invasion of privacy reflects the aggressive surveillance of citizens by the 1933-45 Nazi regime and later by Communist authorities in the former East Germany.
Analysts believe that US intelligence services’ confidence in their German counterparts was badly shaken after it emerged that the September 11, 2001, plotters had lived and possibly devised the suicide hijackings in Hamburg.
Obama has promised Germany and the European Union a full explanation of allegation that the NSA had bugged EU offices and the embassies of European allies and conducted a massive communications surveillance operation in Europe.
Germany faces a general election in September, and the opposition is seeking to portray Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government as having failed to respond decisively to the US spying.
Christian Lindner, vice chairman of the liberal Free Democrats, the junior party in Merkel’s coalition, told German state television that he was sceptical about what Friedrich’s visit would achieve.
Opposition Social Democrat chief Sigmar Gabriel dismissed Friedrich’s trip to Washington as “a show.”