Hillary Clinton calls world leaders to express regret on WikiLeaks

Washington: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has spoken with 12 world leaders, including the Presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan, in the past one week to express her regret over the embarrassing release of secret diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks.

Yesterday, Clinton spoke to Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and President Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina.

"They did talk about the importance of our relationship in both cases. She did express regret to both presidents for the release of classified documents," State Department spokesman P J Crowley said.

"In both conversations, they continued to look forward, and in both cases, President Zardari and President Fernandez de Kirchner continued to express the importance and friendship that these countries have with the United States," Crowley said.

Clinton had termed the release of classified US documents by WikiLeaks as an attack not just on the US, but the international community. The whistleblower site released 250,000 US documents last week.

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According to the list provided by the State Department, Clinton has also called President Ellen Johnson Sirlef of Liberia, China State Councilor Dai Bingguo, Canada Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, new French Foreign Minister Michelle Alliot-Marie, British Foreign Secretary William Hague and Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal.

Clinton also called the Japanese and the South Korean Foreign Ministers but these were not in the context of WikiLeaks.

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"On Friday, she talked to leaders in China, Germany, France, the UK, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia. On Saturday, she talked to Canada. On Sunday, she talked to China again.

"Now, I would say in both cases of her conversations with Foreign Minister Yang and Councilor Dai, the majority of those conversations related to North Korea. But Wiki did come up as part of both," Crowley said.

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"On Tuesday, she talked to President Johnson Sirleaf. And of course today, she talked to President Zardari and Fernandez de Kirchner. And she will continue to make these calls as her schedule permits," he said.