Mistake

The American's request for safety in Ecuador, which has sheltered the founder of anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks Julian Assange in its London embassy, no longer looks promising.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa has said he could not consider an asylum request from Snowden unless he was on their territory.

Correa has said giving Snowden a temporary travel pass to fly to Moscow from Hong Kong was "a mistake on our part".

Norway said he was unlikely to get asylum there, Brazil ruled out even answering his request and Poland has said it would not give a "positive recommendation" to any application.

Finland, Spain, Ireland and Austria said he had to be in their countries to make a request, while India said "we see no reason" to accept his petition. France said it had not received a request and China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said she had no information on Snowden's asylum request.

At a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Brunei, US Secretary of State John Kerry said he had raised Snowden "from our point of view" despite the affair not being in their domain.

"Russia has never extradited anyone, is not extraditing anyone and will not extradite anyone," Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters.

Officials in Russia said, however, that an embassy car would be considered foreign territory if another country picked him up and offered him asylum.