* Putin says Snowden in transit area at airport, free to go
* Russia and China dismiss U.S. criticism
* U.S. says Russia has clear legal basis to expel Snowden
* White House says China relations have been damaged
(Adds U.S. comments on Russia’s stance)
By Alexei Anishchuk and Thomas Grove
MOSCOW/NAANTALI, Finland, June 25 (Reuters) – President
Vladimir Putin confirmed on Tuesday a former U.S. spy agency
contractor sought by the United States was in the transit area
of a Moscow airport but ruled out handing him over to
Washington, dismissing U.S. criticisms as “ravings and rubbish”.
In his first public comments since Edward Snowden flew in on
Sunday, Putin appeared to make light of the diplomatic uproar
over the fugitive, whose flight from U.S. authorities is
becoming a growing embarrassment for President Barack Obama.
Asked by a journalist about the affair, he smiled fleetingly.
“I myself would prefer not to deal with these issues. It’s
like shearing a piglet: there’s a lot of squealing, but there’s
little wool,” he told a news conference in Finland.
Snowden, who worked as a systems administrator at a U.S.
National Security Agency facility in Hawaii, is facing espionage
charges from the United States after leaking details about
secret U.S. surveillance programs to the news media.
Putin’s refusal to hand back Snowden risked deepening a rift
with the United States that has also sucked in China and
threatens relations between countries that may be essential in
settling global conflicts including the Syrian war.
Washington has gone to great lengths to try to ensure
Snowden has nowhere to go to seek refuge. But Putin said Russia
had no extradition treaty with the United States and suggested
Moscow would expel Snowden only if he were a criminal.
“He has not crossed the state’s border, and therefore does
not need a visa. And any accusations against Russia (of aiding
him) are ravings and rubbish,” Putin said in the garden of a
presidential residence, with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto
beside him.
Shortly after Putin’s comments, the White House once again
urged Russia to immediately expel Snowden and said Moscow had a
“clear legal basis” to do so based on the basis of his revoked
passport and the outstanding charges against him.
“Accordingly, we are asking the Russian government to take
action to expel Mr. Snowden without delay and to build upon the
strong law enforcement cooperation we have had, particularly
since the Boston Marathon bombing,” said White House National
Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden.
Hayden said the United States agreed with Putin’s comment in
Finland that it did not want the incident to negatively impact
U.S.-Russia relations, but members of the U.S. Congress
denounced Putin’s stance and said it would have an inevitable
impact.
“It should cause a profound reevaluation on our relationship
with Russia and with Vladimir Putin, something that a lot of us
have been saying for a long time,” Senator John McCain, the 2008
Republican presidential contender, told reporters.
Hours earlier, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had
cautiously questioned the Russian approach.
“It is accurate there is not an extradition treaty between
Russia and the United States, but there are standards of
behavior between sovereign nations,” Kerry said, in Jeddah.
Snowden has applied for asylum in Ecuador but Quito has said
it is still considering the application and the United States is
trying to persuade the governments of countries where he might
head to hand him over. His plans remain unclear.
FREE TO LEAVE
Putin said the 30-year-old Snowden was in the transit area
of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport and, not having gone through
passport control, was free to leave.
“The sooner he chooses his final destination, the better it
would be for us and for himself,” Putin said.
There has been speculation in the Russian media that Snowden
may be talking to the FSB, the Russian security service, and
could be involved in a prisoner swap. Putin said Russian
security agencies “never worked with … Snowden and are not
working with him today”.
The U.S. State Department said diplomats and Justice
Department officials were talking to Russia, suggesting they
sought a deal to secure his return to face espionage charges.
“We’ve asked the Russian government to consider all
potential options to expel him to return to the United States,
and we’re going to continue those discussions in law enforcement
and diplomatic channels,” State Department spokesman Patrick
Ventrell told reporters.
Snowden left Hong Kong for Moscow on Sunday, and the
WikiLeaks anti-secrecy group said he was headed for Ecuador.
Journalists camped out at the airport have not spotted him
inside, or leaving, the transit area. He has not registered at a
hotel in the transit zone, hotel sources say.
A receptionist at the Capsule Hotel “Air Express”, a complex
of 47 basic rooms furnished predominantly with grey carpets and
grey walls, said Snowden had turned up on Sunday, looked at the
price list and then left.
U.S. officials admonished Beijing and Moscow on Monday for
allowing Snowden to escape their clutches but the United States’
partners on the U.N. Security Council, already at odds with
Washington over the conflict in Syria, hit back indignantly.
“The United States’ criticism of China’s central government
is baseless. China absolutely cannot accept it,” Foreign
Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in Beijing, also
dismissing U.S. criticism of Hong Kong, a Chinese territory, for
letting Snowden leave.
WIKILEAKS
Putin also went on to praise WikiLeaks founder Julian
Assange, who is also a fugitive from U.S. justice, and
questioned whether he or Snowden should be treated as criminals.
“Ask yourself: should such people be handed over to be
imprisoned or not?” said Putin, who last week was smarting at
being isolated over Syria at a summit of the G8 industrial
powers and sees Washington as an overzealous global policeman.
Advisers to Assange declined to comment on the situation.
Fallout from a protracted wrangle over Snowden could be
far-reaching, as Russia, the United States and China hold veto
powers at the U.N. Security Council and their broad agreement
could be vital to any settlement in Syria.
International mediator Lakhdar Brahimi said on Tuesday he
was pessimistic an international conference on Syria could take
place in July as hoped and urged Russia and the United States to
help contain a conflict which has killed almost 100,000 people.
The Sheremetyevo airport transit area is Russian sovereign
territory, but Russia says that in staying there Snowden has not
formally entered the country. Going through passport control
might implicate Putin in helping a fugitive.
Snowden is traveling on a refugee document of passage
provided by Ecuador, WikiLeaks said.
U.S. officials said intelligence agencies were concerned they
did not know how much sensitive material Snowden had and that he
may have taken more documents than initially estimated which
could get into the hands of foreign intelligence.
(Additional reporting Gabriela Baczynska and Lidia Kelly in
Moscow, Alexandra Valencia in Quito, Mark Felsenthal, Paul
Eckert, Rachelle Younglai, Laura MacInnis and Mark Hosenball in
Washington and Katya Golubkova in Havana; Writing by Elizabeth
Piper and Timothy Heritage; Editing by Ralph Boulton, Karey Van
Hall and Tim Dobbyn)
