By Angelo Young
on June 29 2013 5:01 PM
Calling U.S. Congress members “brats” for their blustering to harm Ecuador-U.S. trade relations should the country grant National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden political asylum, Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa characterized a phone conversation with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Saturday as “cordial” and “courteous” ...
On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that if Ecuador granted asylum to Snowden, then he would lead efforts to prevent the renewals of Ecuador’s duty-free access to U.S. markets under the Generalized System of Preferences program and of the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act: Both would expire by the end of next month unless renewed, as Reuters said. Ecuador responded by unilaterally renouncing the trade benefits, saying it would not be blackmailed by political posturing ...
Meanwhile, Ecuador withdraw on Friday Snowden’s temporary travel documents that would have allowed him to leave Moscow’s Domodedovo International Airport, where the leaker of U.S. electronic-surveillance documents is believed to be staying in a political no man’s land reserved for in-transit travelers who do not have permission to enter Russian territory.
According to official Ecuadorean correspondence acquired by the Spanish-language network Univision, the reason for the withdrawal of the paperwork is that Quito is concerned that Assange is overstepping his bounds with regard to facilitating Snowden’s passage to refuge. Ecuador’s ambassador to the U.S., Nathalie Cely, told the president’s office that, to the international community, Assange “appears to be running the show,” according to the Guardian.
http://www.ibtimes.com/us-vp-biden-had-cordial-talk-ecuador-president-correa-ecuador-cooling-idea-granting-accused-spy
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