Putin: Snowden can stay in Russia if he ceases harming the United States

Former U.S. intelligence officer Edward Snowden can stay in the Russian Federation, if he wants, on one condition - he has to stop harming the United States, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced today.

"If he wants to go somewhere and someone will receive him - he is free to do so. If he wants to stay here, there's one condition: he must stop his work directed at damaging our American partners, strange as it may sound from my mouth," Putin said.

He added that, in view of the fact that Snowden feels himself to bea human rights activist and campaigner for human rights, apparently, he is not going to stop this work.

"Russia never extradites anyone, and is not going to do so. And no one ever extradited anyone to us. At best, we exchanged our employees of Foreign Intelligence for those who have been detained and arrested, and sentenced by a court in the Russian Federation," the President Russian is quoted by RIA Novosti.

"The president of Russia has already expressed his attitude to Snowden, when asked questions, and President Obama spoke too. Of course, they do not have a solution that would suit each of the parties, so they instructed the head of the FSB (Alexander) Bortnikov, and the director of the FBI (Robert) Mueller to be in constant contact and look for options for solutions," the Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said today.

The situation with former U.S. intelligence officer Edward Snowden will probably require in the future to develop new international rules that will govern such situations, Patrushev added.

"We can proceed from the particular to the general, or, conversely, from the general to the particular. In this case it is possible that going from the particular to the general will require some elaboration of international rules," he said in an interview with the TV channel "Russia 24".

Snowden, who has revealed information about the activities of U.S. intelligence, was hiding out in Hong Kong, from where he flew to Moscow to then head to Ecuador, where he has asked for political asylum. The U.S. authorities are demanding that Snowden be detained, accusing him on three counts, for each of which he could face up to ten years in prison. Russia may give up foreigners only to those countries which have signed a relevant agreement, and with the United States there is no such agreement. The U.S. does not agree with this argument and claims that Russia has all the legal grounds to extradite Snowden.