Ecuador president: Snowden can’t leave Moscow airport without Russia’s OK

View all… In an interview Sunday with the Associated Press, Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said that until NSA leaker Edward Snowden finds himself at an Ecuadorean embassy or sets foot in the South American state, his asylum petition cannot be processed. Further, Correa suggested that Russian authorities—who have essentially played dumb, saying that they have no jurisdiction over an international transit zone in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport—seem to be stymying Ecuador’s every effort to get Snowden out.

"This is the decision of Russian authorities," Correa told the AP. "[Snowden] doesn't have a passport. I don't know the Russian laws, I don't know if he can leave the airport, but I understand that he can't. At this moment he's under the care of the Russian authorities. If he arrives at an Ecuadorean Embassy, we'll analyze his request for asylum."

Apparently, Ecuador had requested that the Kremlin allow Snowden to fly commercially to Vietnam or Singapore, where Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino had been travelling. Presumably, had the leaker been able to meet Patino, Snowden could have been escorted to the nearest embassy and have his asylum application processed more quickly.

Russia also apparently denied—possibly preemptively—an anticipated request to have an Ecuadorean plane come pick up Snowden.

"We don't have long-range aircraft,” Correa added. “It's a joke.”

The president added that he had no clue whether Snowden was even headed for Ecuador and said that the Ecuadorean consul in London committed a “serious error” by issuing a travel document for Snowden. President Correa also noted this consul would be punished, but he did not elaborate. It remains unclear what else the Ecuadorean government can do for Snowden at this stage. (Ecuador continues to harbor WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in its London embassy.)

"I think the government started to realize the dimensions of what it was getting itself into, how it was managing things and the consequences that this could bring," Santiago Basabe, an analyst and professor of political sciences at the Latin American School of Social Sciences in Quito, also told the AP. "So it started pulling back, and they'll never tell us why, but I think the alarm bells started to go off from people very close to the government, maybe Ecuador's ambassador in Washington warned them about the consequences of asylum for Snowden."

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