A top Russian lawmaker declared on Sunday it was "morally impermissible" to hand over to the United States fugitive intelligence leaker Edward Snowden, who remains in political limbo at a Moscow airport.

Snowden, the 30-year-old former contractor for the National Security Agency, has been living in the transit zone of Sheremetyevo Airport for more than a week, unable to fly on with a revoked US passport or exit the airport without a Russian visa.

Snowden has requested asylum in Ecuador but is unable to get to its embassy in central Moscow.

Alexei Pushkov, who heads the international affairs committee at the Duma lower house of parliament, said it would be wrong to hand Snowden over to the US where he is wanted for leaking classified information about covert US surveillance programs.

"It's not a matter of (Snowden's) usefulness (to Russia) - it's a matter of principle," he wrote on Twitter on Sunday. "Handing over a political refugee is morally impermissible."

On Sunday, the Kremlin played down the fact that Snowden is still living at the airport, with President Vladimir Putin's spokesman telling the Echo of Moscow radio station that "this issue is not on the Kremlin's agenda".

"Since it's not our issue, I don't know what options there are for the situation's development, nor what the legal or other aspects are in this," said spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Ecuador's President Rafael Correa said on Saturday he has spoken with US Vice-President Joe Biden about Snowden and that the US official asked Ecuador to reject the fugitive intelligence leaker's asylum request.

Correa said Ecuador would consult with the US before making a decision but that ultimately it is up to Quito whether to grant asylum to the young man who has made bombshell revelations about covert US surveillance of phone records and Web traffic.

Correa said the conversation took place on Friday, as Biden called and "passed on a polite request from the US to reject the request".

Correa said he explained to Biden that Ecuador cannot process Snowden's asylum request because he is not physically in the country.

AFP-AP

(China Daily 07/01/2013 page10)