Spokesman denies German leader bidding to head UN

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BERLIN (AP) — What is Angela Merkel planning when she eventually leaves her job as German chancellor, leading Europe's biggest economy?

The top job at the United Nations apparently isn't on the agenda, her office says.

Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert curtly denied a report Wednesday in a Luxembourg newspaper that the chancellor hopes to succeed Ban Ki-moon as U.N. secretary-general in two years.

The South Korean's second term finishes at the end of 2016 and a European hasn't had the top U.N. job since Austria's Kurt Waldheim left in 1981.

Daily Luxemburger Wort cited unidentified German government officials as saying Merkel, who last year won a third term as chancellor, lobbied for the post during a recently visit to Washington.

Seibert wrote on his official Twitter account that the report "lacks any foundation."