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The German Foreign Minister, the Social Democrat Heiko Maas summoned China yesterday to give a "clarification of the origin" of the new coronavirus. "The whole world wants the exact origin of the virus to be clarified," Maas said in an interview with the German media group Funke. China can demonstrate "how transparent it wants to be with the virus," he added.

The United States has also openly questioned the origin of the coronavirus on more than one occasion and has accused China of concealing information.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday there was "a significant amount of evidence" that the coronavirus emerged from a Chinese laboratory, but did not question the conclusion by US intelligence agencies that it was not man-made.

"There is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan," Pompeo told ABC's "This Week", referring to the virus that has killed some 240,000 people worldwide, including more than 67,000 in the United States.

Pompeo then briefly contradicted a statement released last Thursday by the United States' top spy agency that the virus did not appear to be man-made or genetically modified. That statement undermines conspiracy theories promoted by anti-China activists and some supporters of President Donald Trump that suggest it was developed in a Chinese government biological weapons laboratory.

"The best experts so far seem to think it was man-made. I have no reason not to believe that right now," said Pompeo. When the interviewer pointed out that this was not the conclusion of the US intelligence agencies, Pompeo backed down and said: "I have seen what the intelligence community has said. I have no reason to believe that they were wrong."

Despite being a strong critic of China's handling of the onset of the pandemic, Pompeo declined to say whether he believed the virus had been intentionally released.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized the role of the Asian giant in the pandemic, which has infected nearly 3.5 million people. According to Trump, Beijing withheld important information about the outbreak , demanding that it be held "responsible."

US media say Trump has commissioned spies to investigate the virus's origins further. Early versions put the start of the pandemic at a Wuhan market that sells exotic animals like bats, but Washington now says the epidemic originated in a virus research lab near the scene.

"I think everyone can see it now. Remember, China has a history of infecting the world and running poor quality labs, " said Pompeo. The head of diplomacy said China initially tried to minimize the coronavirus with "a classic communist disinformation effort, (and) that created enormous risk." "President Trump is very clear: we will hold those responsible accountable," he concluded.

The official version of Beijing is that the virus spilled to humans in a wild animal market in the city of Wuhan, in the center of the country. Other countries have joined Washington in requesting greater transparency, and the World Health Organization (WHO) has also asked to participate in the investigation of the origin of the coronavirus.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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