Google – AFP, Maria
Antonova (AFP), 1 July 2013
Edward
Snowden, a former contractor for the NSA, during an interview with
The Guardian
in Hong Kong, June 6, 2013 (Guardian/AFP/File, The Guardian)
|
MOSCOW — US
leaker Edward Snowden has applied for asylum in Russia and President Vladimir
Putin said on Monday he was welcome to stay as long as he stopped leaking US
intelligence reports.
On Sunday
night, Snowden applied for political asylum at the consulate office of the
Sheremetyevo airport, where he had been staying for more than a week in legal
limbo, a foreign ministry official told AFP.
"At
10.30 pm (1830 GMT) yesterday, British citizen Sarah Harrison turned up at the
consulate department at Sheremetyevo airport and submitted a request from
Snowden about granting him asylum," consulate officer Kim Shevchenko told
AFP.
Sarah
Harrison is an employee of anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, who accompanied
Snowden on his June 23 trip from Hong Kong, where the former NSA contractor
leaked details of the US surveillance program after leaving his job in Hawaii.
Putin
appeared to respond to Snowden's request Monday by saying at a news conference
that Snowden, who is wanted in the United States on charges of espionage, must
stop leaking information damaging Washington if he wants to stay in Russia.
"Russia
never hands over anybody anywhere and has no intention to do so," Putin
said when grilled by reporters about the fate of the leaker believed to be
holed up in the airport's transit zone since his arrival from Hong Kong on June
23.
"If he
(Snowden) wants to remain here there is one condition -- he should stop his
work aimed at inflicting damage on our American partners no matter how strange
this may sound coming from me," Putin said.
But Putin,
whose comments came before the announcement by the consular officer that
Snowden had applied for asylum, himself appeared to indicate that was an
unlikely scenario.
"Because
he feels like a rights activist and defender of human rights all indications
are that he is not going to stop this work. So he has to choose a country of
residence for himself and move there."
The Russian
president reiterated Snowden was not a Moscow agent and was not working with
Russian special services.
US
President Barack Obama on Monday confirmed that there were high-level
consultations between Moscow and Washington over Snowden's fate.
"We
have gone through regular, law enforcement channels in enforcing the extradition
request that we have made with respect to Mr Snowden," he said while on
his African visit.
"Mr
Snowden, we understand, has traveled there without a valid passport, without
legal papers. We are hopeful that the Russian government makes decisions based
on the normal procedures regarding international travel."
Putin had
previously refused to immediately hand over Snowden to Washington due to the
absence of an extradition treaty between the two countries.
The head of
Russia's Security Council Nikolai Patrushev earlier Monday said that Putin and
Obama had ordered the chiefs of their respective security agencies, the FSB and
FBI, to find a way out of the diplomatic deadlock.
"Of
course, (Putin and Obama) don't have a solution now that would work for both sides,
so they have ordered the FSB director (Alexander) Bortnikov and FBI director
Robert Mueller to keep in constant contact and find solutions," Patrushev
told television channel Rossiya 24.
"I
have to point out however that the task ahead of them is not easy, because they
have to find a solution within the framework of international legal norms, and
today one cannot say that such norms exist, and that there is a ready
solution," Patrushev added.
Putin also
hinted Monday Snowden might be swapped for another figure, saying that the only
instance Moscow has given out people to other countries was "when we
exchanged our intelligence officers for those people who were detained,
arrested, and convicted in the Russian Federation."
Putin had
last month reportedly sent a letter to Obama ahead of the G8 summit in Ireland,
in which he listed a series of problems in ties with Washington.
The letter
mentioned Russians Viktor Bout and Konstantin Yaroshenko, convicted and jailed
in the United States, reported Kommersant broadsheet.
The two
convicted Russian citizens could both be bargaining chips in the current
negotiations between Washington and Moscow over Snowden, said Dmitry Trenin,
the head of Moscow Carnegie Center think tank.
"If I
was handling the negotiations, I would propose an exchange for Bout and
Yaroshenko," he told AFP. "Another option is signing an agreement
about mutual extradition, something the Americans don't want."
Snowden
arrived in Moscow from Hong Kong on June 23 for a layover on his way to Latin
America, possibly Ecuador, in a bid to escape extradition to the United States.
However,
Ecuador President Rafael Correa said on Sunday that "the solution of
Snowden's destination" was in the hands of Russian authorities.
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