Russian officials say that they have not received asylum request from Snowden

Kremlin officials say that they have not received an official asylum request from Edward Snowden.

"We are not having contact with Snowden," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Interfax, The Associated Press reports.

Snowden met with attorneys and members of Amnesty International last Friday at the Russian airport where he has been staying since June 23. Members of Human Rights Watch also attended the meeting. Snowden requested asylum in Russia because the United States has made traveling to any of the South American countries that will grant him asylum impossible by revoking his passport.

Snowden applied for asylum in Russia once before. He withdrew his application after President Vladimir Putin said that Snowden would have to stop leaking top-secret information.

“At the present time, there have been no applications from Snowden,” Konstantin Romodanovsky, Russia’s Federal Migration Service Director told the New York Times . “If we receive an application, it will be considered in due process of law.”

These comments seem strange in light of Friday’s meeting and press conference.

Image: Laura Poitras / Praxis Films [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons