MOSCOW: Russia yesterday accused Washington of putting it in a “tough spot” by claiming it had failed to disclose revoking the passport of fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden prior to his arrival in Moscow from Hong Kong.
The diplomatic rhetoric around the explosive case of the 30-year-old former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor escalated when Washington blamed Hong Kong’s government of acting in bad faith by letting Snowden out in the first place.
The fate of Snowden himself remained in limbo for a sixth day yesterday as he remained holed up in the transit area of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport without making any contact with the swarm of international reporters at the scene.
The government of Ecuador — his most likely place of exile should he avoid arrest for lifting the curtain on the scale of the US global surveillance programme to the media — said that it had not yet processed Snowden’s asylum application. But Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro — who will coincidentally will be in Moscow on Monday for an energy summit — reiterated late on Thursday his offer to grant a safe haven to the US fugitive.
A Russian official close to the matter yesterday told the Interfax news agency that Washington had deliberately put Moscow in a difficult position, claiming it never reported that Snowden’s passport had been revoked and that he was banned from travel.
He said Moscow might not have allowed Snowden to fly to Russia in the first place had it known about his travel problems.
“The Americans deliberately put Moscow in a tough spot by having failed to inform it of the fact that his passport was annulled in time,” the source said.
“The Russian authorities were informed of this post-factum, more than a week after Snowden was stripped of his passport,” he said. “If this fact had been known in advance, then possibly Mr Snowden might not have flown to Moscow.”
AFP
