US official in Geneva rejects spying claim
The US ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva has denounced spying accusations made in connection with WikiLeaks.
On Thursday, Ambassador Betty E. King told reporters that neither she nor her staff had ever spied on UN officials, as suggested in a diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks.
An American memo posted on the website seems to encourage US diplomats at the UN to gather information about senior UN staff and foreign diplomats.
“I just want to assure everybody we’re not collecting data on UN officials,” King said.
She declined to discuss the accuracy and source of the memo itself.
“Diplomacy has got to have some guarantees of privacy,” she said, noting that the leaks could harm US diplomatic efforts.
WikiLeaks has published more than 900 US cables; about 700 of the classified documents came from the US embassy in Bern and the US mission in Geneva.
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