Russia in ‘unenviable’ position over Snowden: Kremlin advisor

Russia is an “unenviable” position over deciding the future of fugitive US leaker Edward Snowden who remains holed up at a Moscow airport after applying for asylum, the Kremlin rights advisor said Tuesday.

Moscow was caught between its obligations towards a refugee but also a desire not to ruin relations with the United States, the head of the advisory Kremlin rights council Mikhail Fedotov said.

“Russia is the injured party in the Snowden saga. There is no national interest for us at all,” he said, quoted by the Interfax news agency.

“We cannot hand over someone who ran to the protection of our state. But on the other hand we do not want to ruin our relations with the United States, which is our partner on many international questions.”

“Russia is in a very unenviable position,” said Fedotov, comparing Moscow’s predicament to “getting a hangover at someone else’s party”.

The United States is pressing Russia to hand over the former National Security Agency (NSA) employee, who Washington wants to put on trial for leaking details of a vast surveillance programme.

Fedotov said that he had proposed at a recent meeting with US ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul to create a joint commission out of the Kremlin rights group and the US Helsinki Commission to discuss the Snowden case.

“He said that this idea seemed very interesting,” said Fedotov.

The head of Russia’s migration service, Konstantin Romodanovsky, said on Tuesday that there was no news over Snowden’s asylum application which was being considered in the normal way.

The Kremlin has indicated no hurry to move things on, with President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman saying the Snowden issue is not on the agenda of the Russian strongman.

Interfax reported Tuesday that Snowden — whose Russian lawyer last week presented him with a copy of Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” — had asked for more books to pass his time.

Specifically, he had asked for the monumentally long multi-volume history of Russia written by nineteenth century historian Nikolai Karamzin, the agency said.