WASHINGTON, June 24 (Itar-Tass) - The White House on Monday pressed Russia to use all options to expel NSA leaker Edward Snowden, who is assumed to be still in Moscow.
The White House now expects Russian authorities to look at all the options available to them to expel Snowden to face charges in the U.S. for releasing secret surveillance information, White House press secretary Jay Carney said.
He slammed China for allowing the leaker of secret U.S. government surveillance secrets to leave Hong Kong. "We are just not buying that this was a technical decision by a Hong Kong immigration official," Carney said. "This was a deliberate choice by the government to release a fugitive despite a valid arrest warrant, and that decision unquestionably has a negative impact on the U.S.-China relationship."
When asked how Snowden’s stay in Russia might tell on the bilateral relations, Carney said that the bilateral consultations were underway and he preferred not to anticipate the development.
Carney several times noted positive experience of cooperation between the United States’ and Russia’s law enforcers. Nonetheless, when asked about Snowden’s probable motives, he suggested these should be judged by his choice of “protectors.” In this context, he spoke negatively about the regimes in China and Russia. “If his passion here is for press freedom and freedom of the Internet and the like, he has chosen unlikely protectors," he said.
When asked by an Itar-Tass correspondent to explain what is the difference between Snowden or Bradley Manning, a U.S. Army private who stands accused of having passed classified material to the website WikiLeaks, and many political dissidents and prisoners the United State authorities have and are supporting even they violated national laws of other states, he said the comparison was invalid due to differences in legal systems in the United States and the former Soviet Union.