US dismisses calls for Clinton's resignation

The White House dismissed calls seeking the resignation of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over WikiLeaks allegation that she ordered US diplomats to spy at the UN, and termed such demands as "absurd and ridiculous".

"My reaction is, I think that statement is ridiculous and absurd," White House Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, told the CNN in an interview, when asked about the interview given by WkiLeaks founder and editor, Julian Assange, to the Time magazine in which he sought the resignation of Clinton alleging that the Secretary of State ordered spying of diplomats at the UN.

"The President has great confidence in and admires the work that Secretary Clinton has done to further our interests in the world and to keep this country and our region a safer place to live in. I think that -- I'm not entirely sure why we -- why we care about the opinion of one guy with one website. Our foreign policy and the interests of this country are far stronger than his one website," Gibbs argued.

"I know this, that we have interests, as I said, in this world and the world has an interest in us playing the type of role

that we play in foreign policy," he said. "We're not going to be able to make progress on things like counter terrorism or nuclear nonproliferation without the involvement of the United States of America," he said.

"That's why I say that our foreign policy is far stronger than one person with one website and we have behind us the interest, not just of more than 300 million American citizens, but the hopes and dreams of the entire world, Gibbs noted adding that Clinton is handling this very effectively. "I don't doubt that the president, if he has occasion to talk to some of these leaders, will certainlymention this. But again, I think the secretary of State is handling this effectively. I think that the bottom line is we have the world'sgreatest diplomats. We have the interests of the American people on ourside," he said. We are not going to further our goals or the goals of the world in countering terrorism and those that want to hurt us in making progress on issues like nuclear nonproliferation, the spread of deadly nuclear weapons, without the heavy involvement of US foreign policy, he added. "And we'll continue to do that," Gibbs said.