MOSCOW - Fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden on Friday told rights activists he would seek asylum in Russia, in his first encounter with the outside world since becoming marooned at a Moscow airport three weeks ago.
The meeting at Sheremetyevo airport with rights groups and lawyers appeared an attempt by Snowden to find a way out of an increasingly difficult situation as he seeks to escape US espionage charges for leaking sensational details of widespread US surveillance activities.
Participants, including representatives of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, told reporters after the meeting that Snowden told them he wanted asylum in Russia since he could not fly out of the country without travel documents.
They also said that the 30-year-old had vowed not to harm the United States, apparently in response to a key Kremlin condition that he stop leaking damaging information about Washington’s spy programme.
Snowden has been holed up at the airport’s transit zone since arriving on a flight from Hong Kong on June 23 before his US passport was revoked.
Human Rights Watch representative Tanya Lokshina told reporters agency that Snowden said “he wants to stay here”.
He has applied for asylum in 21 countries. Moscow said last week that Snowden had withdrawn his application for asylum in Russia after learning it was conditional on not harming US interests.
“As far as I understand, he is seriously ready to obtain political asylum in Russia,” ruling party lawmaker Vyacheslav Nikonov, who also attended the meeting, told reporters.
The Kremlin swiftly responded Snowden could stay in the country if he stops revealing confidential US information, reiterating the position set out by President Vladimir Putin.
“Mr. Snowden could hypothetically stay in Russia if he: first, completely stops the activities harming our American partners and US-Russian relations and second, if he asks for this himself,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in comments quoted by Russian news agencies.
The powerful speaker of the Russian lower house of parliament, Sergei Naryshkin, told state television that Russia should grant Snowden asylum, describing him as a “defender of human rights”. According to lawyer Genri Reznik who was present at the meeting, Snowden “promised that he would not act to harm the United States”.
“He (Snowden) views the Russian president’s position with understanding,” said Reznik. “He understands that giving him political asylum will be complicated and will strain ties between Russia and the US.”
In a picture of the meeting posted by Lokshina from HRW, Snowden, wearing a grey shirt, looked healthy and calm as he sat at a desk flanked by two women, one of whom was an employee of the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy website, Sarah Harrison, who arrived with him from Hong Kong. Nikonov said he appeared to be in “decent physical shape”.
The campaigners had on Thursday night received an emailed invitation apparently from Snowden to attend the former government contractor’s first publicised encounter since he arrived.
According to the invitation which was posted on Facebook by Lokshina, Snowden wanted to discuss his “next steps” as he seeks to escape US authorities after revealing that the American intelligence services were seizing vast amounts of Internet and phone data around the world.
In a message, Snowden thanked Latin American states for considering his asylum requests but denounced “an unlawful campaign by officials in the US government to deny my right to seek and enjoy this asylum.”
Meanwhile, the United States told China it was upset it did not hand over US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden after he fled to Hong Kong, saying that the decision had undermined relations.
President Barack Obama, meeting senior Chinese officials who were in Washington for annual wide-ranging talks, “expressed his disappointment and concern” over the Snowden case, the White House said in a statement Thursday.
Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, one of the main US officials in the talks, said Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed at their summit last month at the California resort of Sunnylands to cooperate over problems.
“That is why we were very disappointed with how the authorities in Beijing and Hong Kong handled the Snowden case, which undermined our effort to build the trust needed to manage difficult issues,” Burns said.
“We have made clear that China’s handling of this case was not consistent with the spirit of Sunnylands or with the type of relationship — the new model — that we both seek to build,” Burns said at a joint press event.
Snowden, a former government contractor, fled the United States for Hong Kong after revealing details of pervasive US intelligence surveillance on the Internet. The United States sought his extradition to face charges.
But Snowden was allowed to leave Hong Kong, a territory of China that enjoys a large amount of autonomy, for Russia.
Since arriving in Russia on June 23, Snowden has been stuck in the transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport as he seeks a way to get to a country that will offer him asylum.
State Councilor Yang Jiechi, speaking next to Burns, defended decisions on Snowden, whose allegations of US snooping in Chinese Internet networks caused a stir in Beijing.
“The central government of China has always respected the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government’s handling of cases in accordance with the law,” he said.
Hong Kong “handled the Snowden case in accordance with the law and its approach is beyond reproach”, said Yang, a central figure in Chinese foreign policy.
Beijing’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying reiterated Yang’s comments at a regular briefing Friday and told reporters: “The SAR government’s handling of the Snowden case according to law is beyond reproach and all parties should respect that.” SAR refers to Hong Kong.
“The Americans are just trying to save face,” said Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmaker Claudia Mo, dismissing the rebuke from Washington as “diplomatic talk”.
“The Chinese didn’t exactly invite Snowden to come to Hong Kong,” Mo told AFP.
Hong Kong executive council member Bernard Chan was also critical of Washington, saying “Hong Kong and China were not the ones at fault”.
“It was the US, not Hong Kong, that decided to operate a global electronic spying operation, which even some Americans now believe is out of control,” Chan wrote in the South China Morning Post.
“It was the US, not Hong Kong, that decided directly or via outsourcing to use the services of a young man who turned out to be disloyal.”
Earlier Thursday, Russia’s Interfax news agency said the US had stopped pressing Russia to extradite Snowden, quoting a source close to the situation.
“There has not been any request either through official or unofficial channels for several days now,” the source told the agency.
Snowden has applied for asylum in 27 countries.
Although many of them have already turned down his request, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro offered “humanitarian asylum” to Snowden last week.
But the country’s foreign Minister Elias Jaua told AFP on Thursday that Snowden had yet to accept his country’s offer.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Mercosur trade bloc summit in Montevideo, he said his government had had no contact with Snowden.
Earlier, Jaua said that Mercosur leaders, when they meet on Friday, would release a resolution denouncing the diversion of the jet carrying Bolivian President Evo Morales home from Moscow last week.
Morales, who accused four European nations — France, Italy, Portugal and Spain — of denying their airspace because they believed Snowden was hiding on his plane, has been invited to the Mercosur summit.