The US Vice President Joe Biden has urged Ecuador's president to reject Edward Snowden's asylum request, after the NSA leaker's attempts for refuge prompted Biden to personally intervene in the case.
The highest-level conversation between the US and Ecuador begun with Biden talking to Ecuador's Rafael Correa on Friday as the deadlock continued further, with conversations being publicly disclosed since Snowden started seeking asylum from the country, Fox News reports.
Correa revealed that he had a 'friendly and very cordial' conversation with the Vice President, and said that Ecuador couldn't consider the asylum request until Snowden was on Ecuadorean soil, adding that the decision was theirs although they would ask the opinion of the USA once he arrived.
The move follows President Barack Obama's statement where he said that he had not called global leaders on the issue because he 'shouldn't have to' and he didn't want to start 'wheeling and dealing' with other countries for the extradition of a 'hacker.'
Founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, is also currently in asylum at Ecuador's embassy in London.
Stating that Ecuador was just one of the countries where Snowden was looking for help, WikiLeaks said that he is also seeking asylum in Iceland and had traveled to Moscow recently where he had spent his days waiting in the airport's transit zone.
However, it was reported that there were tensions between Correa and Assange, which could affect plans of Snowden's entry into the Latin American country, with Correa nullifying his travel documents recently.
The Ecuadorian official praised Biden for being more courteous than other US senators but criticized the Obama administration, and invoked the case of two banker brothers whom Ecuador is looking to extradite from the country.
He said that there were rules for everyone but there was a double standard in this case, adding that consistency was clearly lacking.
So far, Russia has declined to have any involvement in the case, despite requests from the US.
