US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Berlin on Friday for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel amid strong German concerns over the surveillance activities of the National Security Agency (NSA), dpa reported.
Kerry was expected to hold a news conference, meet Merkel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and then proceed to the Munich Security Conference.
It is his first visit to Berlin since the NSA scandal broke last June and culminated in the revelation that Merkel's mobile phone was bugged. US President Barack Obama later said her phone would not be monitored for the rest of his term.
Merkel issued her strongest denunciation yet on Wednesday of US break-ins on German communications, saying it hurt the core of "cooperation between allied states." She told the German parliament: "It breaches trust and sows mistrust."
Merkel aides have suggested this week that the German government is getting resigned to the fact that it cannot stop the NSA and that the dispute may only end up harming its relationship with Washington.