Ecuador says Snowden asylum document unauthorised

An Ecuadorean diplomatic employee issued a safe conduct pass for National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden to travel to Ecuador to seek political asylum, but the action was unauthorised and the pass has no validity, government officials said today.
Ecuador's scramble to explain the document, revealed by the Univision television network, came as President Obama was seeking to downplay the international chase for "a 29-year-old hacker" and lower the temperature of an issue that has already raised tensions between the US and uneasy partners Russia and China.
Obama said in Senegal that the damage to US national security has already been done and his top focus now is making sure it can't happen again.

Ecuadorean officials have repeatedly expressed sympathy for Snowden for revealing secret global US surveillance programmes, but have insisted they have taken no decision on granting him asylum, and they rushed to distance themselves from the unsigned letter shown by Univision.
Secretary of Political Management Betty Tola told a news conference that "any document of this type has no validity and is the exclusive responsibility of the person who issued it."
Another government official said that while the document is authentic, it was issued without approval from the Foreign Ministry or other officials in the capital and thus has no legal power.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the matter.

Tola told reporters that Snowden's asylum application hadn't been processed because he was not in Ecuador as required by law. She also threatened legal action against whoever had leaked the document. She and other officials offered no further details about his case.
The back-and-forth over the document appears to be part of broader debate within Ecuador's leftist government about whether to offer asylum to Snowden, who is believed to remain in limbo in the transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport after flying in from Hong Kong.

Snowden's American passport has been revoked by US authorities. Ecuadoran officials have defended Snowden in public, saying his revelations of US spying benefited the world, but also seem taken aback by the intensity of global attention and US criticism focused on Ecuador for considering his asylum request.
Communications Minister Fernando Alvarado reacted defiantly today, saying the country rejects economic "blackmail" to force its hand.
He said "Ecuador unilaterally and irrevocably renounces" tariff benefits on hundreds of millions of dollars in trade that are up for renewal by the US Congress.