Germany wants Snowden to testify about US intelligence activities

The German government will examine how former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden could testify to a parliamentary inquiry into US intelligence activities in Germany, the interior minister said.

The effort comes amid rising demands not only to thank Snowden for his disclosures but also to grant him full political asylum.

At the same time, a senior German intelligence official raised concerns on Wednesday, which he said were shared by European colleagues, that the White House and Congress had failed to understand the depth of the rift over US intelligence activities.

It is a fury that built with the disclosure two weeks ago of eavesdropping on Chancellor Angela Merkel's cellphone and subsequent reports that the monitoring and other espionage activities were carried out from the US Embassy in Berlin.

The statements come as Germany is seeking leverage for a binding agreement with Washington to end mutual spying and put intelligence sharing on a new basis.

The situation in both capitals is fluid, and the pressures evident: Germans see a vulnerable President Barack Obama in trouble on several fronts in Washington, while in Berlin, Merkel is negotiating a new coalition government with Social Democrats who Americans fear may pull her further into the camp of Washington's critics.

The interior minister, Hans-Peter Friedrich, a member of Merkel's conservative bloc, ruled out asylum but said that "we must now discuss under what circumstances and how it is possible that Mr Snowden is heard from, and by whom, in Moscow".