Russian officials maintain they have received no formal asylum request from Edward Snowden. This claim comes one day after a widely reported phone call between Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin. The two men were reported to have discussed a wide range of issues which included the recent events regarding Mr. Snowden.
According to the New York Times, Kremlin officials said Saturday they have received no formal asylum request, and that they learned of Mr. Snowden's desire to seek temporary asylum in Russia from news reports of Mr. Snowden's public statements from Sheremetyevo airport on Friday.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
More intrigue below the squiggle.
MOSCOW — Senior Kremlin officials said Saturday that Russia’s Federal Migration Service had not yet received a formal appeal for asylum from Edward J. Snowden. And the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, insisted that the government had had no contact with him — a curious statement given the government’s clear role in arranging a meeting at Sheremetyevo Airport here in Moscow on Friday between Mr. Snowden and lawyers and human rights advocates.
Curious indeed. First, this is especially curious in light of the upcoming G20 summit meeting in Moscow. Though the US Ambassador to Russia insists that President Obama will attend the summit, there has been speculation that Obama would not attend so long as Snowden is in Russia. Putin was reported to have sent a telegram to Obama on Thursday, July 4 stating his commitment to holding the summit meeting.
From an earlier article in the New York Times:
On Thursday, Mr. Putin sent a telegram to President Obama noting the Fourth of July holiday and restating his commitment to holding a summit meeting in Moscow in September, ahead of the G20 conference, which will be in St. Petersburg. American officials have signaled that Mr. Obama is unlikely to visit Moscow if Mr. Snowden is still holed up at Sheremetyevo airport.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
But this is also curious for a number of other reasons to those of us who are self-confessed Snowden saga addicts. For the record, I do not believe Mr. Snowden to be either a hero or a traitor, and I think that question is utterly irrelevant. What fascinates me about this story is the extent to which it provides us a rare window onto the diplomatic maneuverings of nations regarding their most sensitive intelligence operations.
The verbal maneuvering seems to signal that Russia’s political position vis-à-vis Mr. Snowden has been complicated further by his now publicly professed desire to stay here. Although President Vladimir V. Putin has insisted that Mr. Snowden must stop harming American interests, the Obama administration has made clear that it believes those interests are being harmed so long as Mr. Snowden is on the loose.
This statement by the Kremlin could just be an innocuous statement of fact designed to maintain public neutrality, or it could be indicative of something more. This diary is an invitation to speculate about what this might mean in light of what has transpired to date.
So, what do you think this latest wrinkle means?