AKIPRESS.COM - Italy's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday called on the United States' ambassador to "clarify" reports from an Italian newspaper and WikiLeaks that the U.S. National Security Agency spied on then-Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in 2011.

The report ran in the weekly newspaper L'Espresso in collaboration with the secrets-exposing organization WikiLeaks, reports CNN.

"The Italian Foreign Ministry has summoned the U.S. ambassador, John Phillips, to clarify the news appeared (in) the press, according to which the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and some of his close collaborators would have been subject to wiretaps in 2011," a ministry statement reads.

The L'Espresso report came as WikiLeaks also publicized documents that it says shows the NSA had intercepted Italian diplomatic cables about a 2010 conversation between Berlusconi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as communication from a Berlusconi adviser in 2011.

This is among the latest examples of documents, leaked over the last several years, that showed past spying activities by the United States against officials in areas such as France, Germany, the European Union and Brazil.