Brussels, 29/11/2010 (Agence Europe) - The EU did not wish to make any comment on Monday 29 November on the release by WikiLeaks (in five major newspapers) of several hundred thousand classified US State Department documents giving the sometimes highly embarrassing analyses and comments by American diplomats and high-ranking officials on important international issues and even on leaders of countries. “We take note of these reports but we have no particular comment,” was all that the spokeswoman of EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton would say. While Nicolas Sarkozy, Silvio Berlusconi and Angela Merkel are all subjects of unflattering comments in memos published on Monday, the main EU leaders - Herman Van Rompuy, José Manuel Barroso and Catherine Ashton - do not appear to have been mentioned in the documents so far made public.
“The 9/11 of international diplomacy”. Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini has expressed his concern over the impact of this affair on confidential relations between states. “This will be the 9/11 of world diplomacy,” he is quoted by the Italian press as saying. Frattini also said that publication of these documents revealed “criminal activities” which have been the subject of legal action in a number of countries. “I hope that the Italian judicial system will now look at this issue,” he said. (H.B./transl.rt)