BERLIN: Police sealed off German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office to check a suspicious package as ministers gathered for a cabinet meeting in the building early on Wednesday.

Ministers carried on with their regular meeting after police cordoned off area around the Chancellery in central Berlin, a witness said.

Four plastic yellow postal crates were left outside the entrance, the witness added.

“We are investigating a suspicious package,” a spokesman for Germany’s Federal Police said.

Officers were waiting for specialists to inspect the package, he added.

In 2010, police intercepted a package containing explosives sent from Greece to Merkel’s office.

Europe has entered 2016 under a state of heightened alert, seven weeks after Islamist militants killed 130 people in shootings and suicide blasts across Paris.

The incident follows a security scare over New Year after police received a tip that militants from Iraq and Syria were planning attacks in Munich.

Published in Dawn, January 7th, 2016