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Former US President Barack Obama traveled to Berlin on Friday to meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel at her office in private.

German officials characterized the meeting as “routine.”

Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert defended the meeting as standard operating procedure and said she has met repeatedly with ex-heads of state and government “with whom she worked together closely and well for a time,” WRAL reported.

He said the meeting has no implications for current German-U.S. relations. Asked whether it was a signal to President Donald Trump, with whom Germany has a sometimes-complicated relationship, Seibert replied: “I would firmly reject that impression.”

Photo of Obama waving as he left the chancellerly alongside Merkel on Friday:

https://twitter.com/ShutterstockNow/status/1114188015289737222/photo/1