President Barack Obama Thursday said he had never poked and probed to find out the origin of U.S. intelligence on key allies like Germany, following a furor over claims U.S. spies eavesdropped on foreign leaders.

In an interview with NBC News, Obama gave his most detailed response yet to reports that the National Security Agency listened in on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cellphone

Germany's Martin Schulz, current president of the European Parliament, will run for the job of European Commission chief next year on behalf of Europe's Socialist parties.

The 57-year-old Social-Democrat from northern Germany on Wednesday won the endorsement of the Party of European Socialists (PES) to run for the EU executive's powerful top job when Jose Manuel Barroso's mandate ends in 2014.

The German government will study whether U.S. fugitive leaker Edward Snowden can be questioned in Russia, as it sought Wednesday to calm tensions with London and Washington over spy allegations.

Members of a German parliamentary committee overseeing the secret services agreed to ask the government to examine the possibility of Snowden answering questions in Moscow, provided it does not create "difficulties" for him there, its chairman Thomas Oppermann said.

Germany said Tuesday it had asked to speak to Britain's ambassador following a media report that London has been operating a secret listening post from its embassy in the German capital.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman said the British envoy was called in and it was pointed out that "tapping communication from an embassy would be a violation of international law".

Australia and the United States mounted a joint surveillance operation on Indonesia during the 2007 United Nations climate change conference in Bali, a report said Sunday.

The Guardian newspaper's Australian edition cited a document from U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden showing Australian spy agency the Defense Signals Directorate worked alongside America's National Security Agency (NSA) to collect the phone numbers of Indonesian security officials.

Intelligence leaker Edward Snowden is free to speak with whoever he chooses, including foreign authorities, a Kremlin spokesman said on Saturday, after the U.S. fugitive said he was ready to help a German probe into U.S. spying.

"He has temporary refugee status. That status does not foresee any restrictions on his moving around the country or speaking to anyone," President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Agence France Presse.

Germany and the United States are to strike a two-way deal not to spy on each other in the wake of the diplomatic furore sparked by the Edward Snowden revelations, a German newspaper reported.

A delegation of German chancellery and intelligence officials reached the deal during talks at the White House this week, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAS) reported in its Sunday edition.

Spy agencies in Germany, France, Spain and Sweden are carrying out mass surveillance of online and phone traffic in collaboration with Britain, according to documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the Guardian newspaper reported Saturday.

Britain's GCHQ electronic eavesdropping center -- which has a close relationship with the United States' National Security Agency (NSA) -- has taken a leading role in helping the other countries work around laws intended to limit spying, the British newspaper said.

Intelligence leaker Edward Snowden is ready to assist a German probe into U.S. spying on Chancellor Angela Merkel but also wants to talk directly to the U.S. Congress, a German lawmaker who met the fugitive said Friday.

Snowden had late on Thursday met German Green party lawmaker Hans-Christian Stroebele at an undisclosed location in Moscow to discuss his revelations that Washington for years monitored Merkel's mobile phone, which has caused an uproar in Europe.

U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden is ready to talk with German prosecutors in Russia, his lawyer said on Friday, after the fugitive met a German lawmaker over his evidence that Washington spied on Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor, who was also due Friday to begin work at an undisclosed Russian Internet firm, was granted asylum in Russia in August to the fury of the United States, where he faces trial.