We still don't know where NSA leaker Edward Snowden, still technically "in transit" in Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport, will end up next. But now that more than a third of the countries from which he's applied for asylum have said "no," we can get a good sense of where he's not going.
Snowden is seeking asylum from 21 nations after being rejected by Ecuador, according to a statement by WikiLeaks. On his list: China, France, Ireland, and Venezuela, and Russia and Norway confirm that they have received applications from Snowden. The president of Ecuador, Snowden’s original choice for asylum, said on Tuesday that helping the leaker was a “mistake” and Snowden is Russia’s problem. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will meet with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, and they are reportedly slated to discuss Snowden while at a conference in Brunei. If you’re in the military overseas, don’t plan on reading The Guardian: its website has reportedly been banned on computers used by troops abroad.
BBC:
Russian President Vladimir Putin had said that while Moscow "never hands over anybody anywhere", Mr Snowden could only stay on condition that he stopped damaging Russia's "American partners" with his leaks.
Mr Snowden has reportedly been in the transit area of Sheremetyevo since arriving there from Hong Kong on 23 June.
Mr Peskov confirmed he was still there and had not crossed into Russian territory, adding that the former analyst had never been a Russian agent and had never worked with its intelligence services.
Norway, Poland, Germany, Austria, Finland, Ireland, Spain and Switzerland said asylum requests could only be made on their soil.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who is on a visit to Moscow, said Caracas had not yet received an asylum application from Mr Snowden but that he had "done something very important for humanity" and "deserved the world's protection".
"The world's conscience should react, the world youth should react, the decent people who want a peaceful world should react, everyone should react and find solidarity with this young man who has denounced and altered the world that they [the US] pretend to control."
Snowden now describes himself as "a stateless person", accusing the US government of stopping him from exercising the "basic right...to seek asylum".
