Chancellor Angela Merkel addresses a news conference at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, February 28, 2018. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke

Angela Merkel has controversially claimed that ‘no-go-areas’ exist in Germany.

In a wide-ranging interview on Monday, the German chancellor told n-tv that she has a zero tolerance policy on crime, which includes preventing ‘areas where nobody dares to go’.

‘There are such areas and one has to call them by their name and do something about them’, Merkel said.

When asked to name the areas that Merkel referred to, her spokesman Steffen Seibert remained vague, instead telling reporters that ‘the chancellor’s words speak for themselves’.

She failed to directly name the no-go areas that she was specifically referring to (REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke)

Interior Ministry spokesman Johannes Dimorph remained similarly non-specific as he declined to identify the areas, claiming that it was a matter for local authorities to deal with.

Merkel’s claims come after a recent study revealed that migrants may be responsible for the recent rise of violent crime in Germany.

The study, published in January, used data from Lower Saxony, a state where 90 percent of the crime rise was attributed to male migrants.

The researchers also claimed that migrants were twice as likely to reported to police for violent crimes as German nationals.

On Sunday, Merkel will discover if her 2013 coalition with the Social Democratic Party will stand for another four years, with the party’s members voting in a postal ballot to determine the future.