Spied-on Leaders Should See Intercepted Material: Mexican ex-official

MEXICO CITY – Government leaders spied on by the United States should demand to see the intercepted communications, a former Mexican foreign minister and presidential adviser said.

“Those affected have every right to demand, besides apologies, the evidence,” said Rosario Green, who was foreign minister from 1998 to 2000.

“I would ask for my record, the conversations they lifted, and one would think they would hand them over, from A to Z,” she said in an interview with AFP.

The disclosures of widespread surveillance by the US National Security Agency of US allies has caused an international uproar, with leaders in Europe and Latin America demanding an accounting from the United States.

According to the British newspaper the Guardian, citing documents leaked by fugitive former US intelligence analyst Edward Snowden, the NSA eavesdropped on the phone conversations of as many as 35 world leaders.

Among the reported targets were Mexico’s President President Enrique Pena Nieto, Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Mexico’s Foreign Minister Jose Antonio Meade summoned US ambassador Anthony Wayne on Friday for the second time to discuss the reports.

Green said the response should go beyond complaints and be taken to the United Nations, which she said should explore “some way of devising rules for these things.”

Green rejected as an act of “great cynicism” US Secretary of State John Kerry’s explanation in August that the monitoring was aimed at protecting against and preventing terrorist attacks.

“Is Mrs Merkel a terrorist? Or (French President Francois) Hollande, who raised his hand to attack Syria — is he a terrorist?” she asked.