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Snowden Requests Asylum From More Unnamed Countries Venezuela Offers Asylum to Snowden
(about 2 hours later)
MOSCOW — The world’s most sought-after exposer of secrets — the fugitive former intelligence contractor Edward J. Snowden — has applied for political asylum in six additional countries, according to his associates at WikiLeaks, the antisecrecy organization. But the names of those six countries are being kept, um, secret, the group said on Friday. President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela said Friday that he would offer asylum to the fugitive intelligence contractor Edward J. Snowden, who has been stranded in a Moscow airport searching for a safe haven.
In a post on Twitter, WikiLeaks said Mr. Snowden, who is wanted by the United States on charges of revealing classified government information, “has applied to another six countries for asylum,” following up on similar applications to about 20 nations last week. “I have decided to offer humanitarian asylum to the young American Edward Snowden,” Mr. Maduro said during a televised appearance at a military parade marking Venezuela’s independence day.
The initial round of applications generated a barrage of negative responses. Only Venezuela and Bolivia offered positive signals, and neither offered any assurances. Supporters of Mr. Snowden clearly blame that outcome on pressure from the United States, and, as a result, WikiLeaks said it would not reveal the latest countries in which he is seeking shelter. “They will not be named at this time due to attempted US interference,” the group wrote on Twitter. Mr. Maduro said he had decided to act “to protect this young man from the persecution unleashed by the world’s most powerful empire.”
Here in Russia, officials have expressed impatience over Mr. Snowden’s continuing sojourn in the transit zone of Sheremetyevo airport. On Thursday, a deputy foreign minister, Sergey A. Ryabkov, told reporters that Mr. Snowden should pick a destination and leave as soon as possible. It was not immediately clear, however, how Mr. Snowden could reach Venezuela or if Mr. Maduro was willing to help transport him.
Also on Friday, Daniel Ortega, the president of Nicaragua, said he was open to taking in Mr. Snowden. “It is clear that if the circumstances permit we will take in Mr. Snowden with pleasure and give him asylum in Nicaragua,” Mr. Ortega said in Managua.
Mr. Snowden has sought asylum from more than two dozen nations. Most countries have declined.
The offers from Venezuela and Nicaragua appeared to be linked to outrage in Latin America over the treatment last week of President Evo Morales of Bolivia, whose plane was denied permission to fly over several European countries because of what Bolivian officials said were unfounded suspicions that Mr. Snowden was aboard. Mr. Morales was on his way home from a meeting in Moscow.
Mr. Maduro had previously voiced sympathy for Mr. Snowden. He frequently bashes the United States, depicting it as an imperialist bully in Latin America. But at the same time he has shown a desire to improve relations with the United States, directing his foreign minister to start talks with Washington aimed at smoothing the rocky relationship with the top buyer of his country’s all-important oil exports.
Earlier on Friday, WikiLeaks said in a post on Twitter that Mr. Snowden, who is wanted by the United States on charges of revealing classified government information, “has applied to another six countries for asylum,” following up on similar applications to about 20 nations last week.
Supporters of Mr. Snowden clearly blame the refusals on pressure from the United States, and, as a result, WikiLeaks said it would not reveal the latest countries in which he is seeking shelter. “They will not be named at this time due to attempted US interference,” the group wrote on Twitter.
In Russia, officials have expressed impatience over Mr. Snowden’s continuing sojourn in the transit zone of Sheremetyevo airport. On Thursday, a deputy foreign minister, Sergey A. Ryabkov, told reporters that Mr. Snowden should pick a destination and leave as soon as possible.
Russia was apparently among the original countries to which Mr. Snowden submitted an asylum request, but a spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin, Dmitri S. Peskov, has said since that the request was withdrawn.Russia was apparently among the original countries to which Mr. Snowden submitted an asylum request, but a spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin, Dmitri S. Peskov, has said since that the request was withdrawn.
On Thursday, Mr. Putin sent a telegram to President Obama noting the Fourth of July holiday and restating his commitment to holding a summit meeting in Moscow in September, ahead of the G20 conference, which will be in St. Petersburg. American officials have signaled that Mr. Obama is unlikely to visit Moscow if Mr. Snowden is still holed up at Sheremetyevo airport.On Thursday, Mr. Putin sent a telegram to President Obama noting the Fourth of July holiday and restating his commitment to holding a summit meeting in Moscow in September, ahead of the G20 conference, which will be in St. Petersburg. American officials have signaled that Mr. Obama is unlikely to visit Moscow if Mr. Snowden is still holed up at Sheremetyevo airport.
Also on Thursday, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement sharply criticizing European nations that blocked the airplane of President Evo Morales of Bolivia from entering their airspace while he was returning home from a visit to Moscow — apparently because of concerns that Mr. Snowden was hidden aboard the plane.

Monica Machicao contributed reporting from Cochabamba, Bolivia.

In continuing fallout from that incident, Mr. Morales on Thursday night threatened to close the American Embassy in La Paz, the Bolivian capital. Mr. Morales’s plane was forced to make an unplanned landing in Vienna.
He and other South American leaders said the United States had been behind the orders to divert the aircraft.
“My hand would not tremble to close the United States Embassy,” Mr. Morales said in public remarks before a meeting of several South American heads of state in Cochabamba, Bolivia.
Mr. Morales has long had a prickly relationship with the United State. In 2008, he expelled the American ambassador and officials from the Drug Enforcement Administration from Bolivia, accusing them of conspiring against his country. This year, he kicked out the United States Agency for International Development. (Russia similarly expelled U.S.A.I.D. last year.)
The meeting of regional leaders in Cochabamba ended with a declaration calling on France, Portugal, Italy and Spain to apologize for barring the Bolivian plane from their airspace.

William Neuman contributed reporting from Caracas, Venezuela, and Monica Machicao from Cochabamba, Bolivia.