Chuck Schumer Is Furious At Vladimir Putin For 'Stabbing Us In The Back' Over 'Coward' Snowden

[MADem]

57. The Russians seem to want him GONE....!!!! "Welcome, there's the door!"

Mr. Ushakov previously said that Mr. Snowden’s case was not important enough to derail Russia’s overall relationship with the United States, and the inclusion of other topics suggested that the administration was trying to gauge whether cooperation was still possible in advance of planned meetings between Mr. Obama and Mr. Putin in September.

On Thursday, after Mr. Snowden walked out of an airport transit zone where he had remained for five weeks after arriving in Moscow from Hong Kong on June 23, the White House protested and questioned the utility of the planned summit between the two leaders in Moscow. The White House stopped short of announcing that Mr. Obama would cancel it.

A senior Russian lawmaker, Igor N. Morozov, said on Friday that he could not rule out the possibility that Mr. Snowden might in fact leave Russian territory before the end of the month, resolving at least in part the latest irritant in relations.

“This temporary decision leaves the Russian side a certain space for maneuvering, including the possibility to organize the movement of Snowden to another country,” Mr. Morozov, the chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the upper house of Parliament, told the Interfax news agency. “The Russian side is interested in Snowden leaving our territory, and this whole story is not a reason for worsening relations with the United States.”

By Friday evening, the Kremlin made no official statement about Mr. Snowden’s fate, though Mr. Putin had ample opportunity to make remarks as he fielded questions from supporters attending an annual youth camp at Seliger Lake northwest of Moscow. None of the questioners in what is typically a scripted encounter with the public broached the controversy, nor did Mr. Putin raise it.

Mr. Snowden’s whereabouts also remained a mystery. The Russian lawyer who handled Mr. Snowden’s appeal for temporary asylum, Anatoly G. Kucherena, said that Mr. Snowden had found a place to live but declined to say where, or even to specify whether it was in Moscow. He said Mr. Snowden continued mull his next steps, understanding that his situation remained far from settled legally.....Mr. Kucherena added that Mr. Snowden had agreed informally to the condition that Mr. Putin set for staying in Russia, though he had made no written statement to that effect. “If he wants to stay here,” Mr. Putin said in July, “there is one condition: he must stop his work aimed at inflicting damage on our American partners, strange as it sounds from my lips.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/03/world/europe/us-and-russia-snowden.html?_r=0