Switzerland still has questions about Edward Snowden's activities as a CIA operative in Geneva, having received only a "diplomatic" reply to its initial questions, Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter said on Thursday.
"They have replied that they have been respecting Swiss laws and they have never done anything particularly problematic," Burkhalter told reporters.
"So the reply was very diplomatic, we have taken note of it. We have decided to discuss these points further in the future with the Americans but it's clear that for them there was no problem."
Snowden, a former U.S. spy agency contractor who fled the United States after leaking details of secret U.S. government surveillance programmes, worked in Geneva between 2007 and 2009.
Earlier, Ecuador's government said it had not processed former American spy agency contractor Edward Snowden's asylum request because he had not reached any of its diplomatic premises.
Bristling at suggestions Quito was weighing the pros and cons of Snowden's case in terms of its own interests, officials also said that Ecuador would waive its preferential trade rights under a soon-to-expire treaty with the United States.
This comes as President Barack Obama said he had not spoken to Chinese President Xi Jinping or Russian President Vladimir Putin about the U.S. request to extradite former American spy agency contractor Edward Snowden because he "shouldn't have to".
Speaking at a press conference in Senegal, where Obama started a three-country tour of Africa, the U.S. president said normal legal channels should be sufficient to handle Washington's request that Snowden, who left Hong Kong for Russia, be returned.
"I have not called President Xi personally or President Putin personally and the reason is...number one, I shouldn't have to," Obama said.
"Number two, we've got a whole lot of business that we do with China and Russia, and I'm not going to have one case of a suspect who we're trying to extradite suddenly being elevated to the point where I've got to start doing wheeling and dealing and trading on a whole host of other issues," Obama said.
REUTERS