WASHINGTON: After causing weeks of embarrassment for the US intelligence community, the Edward Snowden saga has now cast a shadow over international efforts to end the Syrian civil war and deal with Iran, and could also undermine White House hopes for a nuclear arms reduction deal. Russia’s decision yesterday to grant asylum to Snowden threatens to send already-strained relations between the United States and Russia to the lowest point in years and further complicate efforts to work out geopolitical challenges. With Russia’s sheltering of the former US spy agency contractor seen as a slap in the face to President Barack Obama, the White House is weighing whether he should now back out of a Moscow summit in early September, in a direct snub to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The fact that Washington is even issuing such a threat underscores the potentially damaging repercussions for any prospects of reconciling the two former Cold War rivals on thorny global issues that go well beyond the fate of a single 30-year-old hacker trying to evade US prosecution, analysts say. The two men are highly unlikely to sort out all their many differences even if the summit goes ahead as planned. They have bad personal chemistry and previous meetings have been awkward and unproductive. While the Kremlin played down any bilateral friction, Obama administration officials and top lawmakers suggested it would not be business as usual now that Russia has given Snowden a year’s asylum and allowed him to leave Moscow’s airport after more than five weeks in limbo. “The political climate in Washington on Russia is poisonous,” said Andrew Weiss, a former Russia adviser to President Bill Clinton. “There was already plenty of anger toward Russia brewing in the political establishment. Snowden is an accelerant.” The long list of US differences with Russia is topped by oscow’s support for President Bashar al-Assad in Syria’s civil ar even as Obama has led international calls for him to step side. He will build a new life, says whistleblower’s lawyer MOSCOW: US fugitive Edward Snowden will publish no more leaks but instead look to build a life in Russia where he has been granted a year-long asylum, his lawyer said on Thursday. Anatoly Kucherena, a Russian lawyer who is assisting Snowden, said the 30-year-old has found shelter in a private home of American expatriates after leaving Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport following more than five weeks in limbo there. A pledge not to publish more information that could harm the United States was the condition under which Russian President Vladimir Putin said the American could receive safe harbour. But Snowden’s promise does not extend to the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy group to which he has already handed over much of his material, Kucherena said. He has also said that Snowden does not believe his earlier leaks had done harm to his homeland. “Edward assured me that he is not planning to publish any documents that blacken the American government,” Kucherena said. “But before that he said... when he was in Hong Kong he gave a part of that material to journalists, so that material, of course, he can’t take back.”
Posted on: Fri, 02 Aug 2013 20:21:45 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015