The US state department has worked to contain the potential fallout from the secret diplomatic cables Al Jazeera English:
Several major media organisations, including The Guardian and The New York Times, have published detailed reports on a massive trove of leaked US diplomatic cables.
The files address negative perceptions of various world leaders, repeated calls for US attack on Iran, and requests for US diplomats to spy on other countries' officials.
The White House has described the leaks as "reckless and dangerous".
There are several explosive revelations contained within the documents including diplomatic notes detailing how Arab leaders in the Gulf have been urging an attack on "evil" Iran.
The documents reveal serious fears in Washington over the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme.
They also detail advice given to US diplomats on how to gather intelligence and pass information of interest over to the country's spy agencies. According to media reports, senior UN figures were the target of intelligence gathering by US diplomats.
The cache of documents contain allegations of corruption against foreign leaders, who are subjected to stinging criticism in the cables, with Vladimir Putin referred to as an "alpha-dog."
Angela Merkel "avoids risk and is rarely creative", and Hamid Karzai is described as being "driven by paranoia."
World leaders have scrambled to contain the diplomatic fallout in advance of the expected full release by Wikileaks of the full set of cables later on Sunday.
The classified documents reportedly cover correspondence between US diplomatic missions abroad and the state department in Washington and could reveal "unflattering" views that American officials held about close EU allies and countries like Russia and Turkey.
US diplomats have been visiting foreign ministries hoping to stave off anger over the cables, which are internal messages that often lack the niceties diplomats voice in public.
WikiLeaks has said the newest release will be seven times the size of the October publication of 400,000 Iraq war documents, the biggest leak to date in US intelligence history.
The site also published 77,000 classified US files on the Afghan conflict in July.
The document release will contain more than 250,000 cables and 8,000 diplomatic directives - mostly from the last five years.
Speculation has swirled on the inclusion of cables about US ties to separatist groups in Turkey, perceptions of the UK coalition government, and allegedly corrupt politicians in several countries.
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