FRANKFURT Telefonica Deutschland on Wednesday said it would consider seeking damages from the German government as well as legal action if Berlin imposed restrictions on using China's Huawei that meant retrospective changes to its network.

In a statement to Reuters, Telefonica Deutschland said it was in regular contact with the German authorities and stressed the need for consistency in planning for the security of communications infrastructure.

Earlier a government official said Germany's interior ministry plans to force telecoms operators to slash the use of equipment from Huawei and ZTE in their 5G networks after a review highlighted an over-reliance on these Chinese suppliers.

(Reporting by Hakan Ersen; writing by Matthias Williams; editing by Friederike Heine)