The father of American whistleblower Edward Snowden says Russian President Vladimir Putin will not give in to pressure from Washington to send his son back to the United States.
Å“President Vladimir Putin has stood firm. I respect strength and I respect courage,” Lon Snowden said in a Wednesday interview with Reuters, adding, Å“He has stood firm against the face of intense pressure from our government and I have to believe that he will continue to stand firm.”
He made the remarks on the same day that the White House announced US President Barack Obama decided to cancel his face-to-face meeting with Putin next month after Moscow granted asylum to the former technical contractor for the US National Security Agency (NSA).
In an interview with NBC a day earlier, the US president said that he was Å“disappointed” by Russiaâ„¢s decision to harbor the American leaker.
Putinâ„¢s top foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said in reaction to the US move that Russia is disappointed by Obamaâ„¢s decision to call off the meeting, adding that Washington Å“as before, is not ready to build relations on an equal basis.”
Meanwhile, Snowdenâ„¢s father said, Å“These games of ËœWell, Iâ„¢m not going to go to this meeting,â„¢ or ËœIâ„¢m not going to go to that meeting,â„¢… I do not believe that President Vladimir Putin will cave to that.”
He also expressed hope that the diplomatic row would not distract the American public from the bigger debate about the US governmentâ„¢s secret spying programs and tactics.
Å“The fight is right here. The fight is about these programs that undermine, infringe upon, violate our constitutional rights,” he said.
In June, Snowden leaked two top secret US government spying programs, under which the NSA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are spying on millions of American and European phone records and the Internet data from major Internet companies such as Facebook, Yahoo, Google, Apple, and Microsoft.
The 30-year-old NSA leaker, who was granted political asylum in Russia on August 1, has been charged in the United States with espionage and theft of government property.
MR/HSN
Republished from: Press TV