Rio De Janeiro:
Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said his nation hasn't received an asylum request from the former CIA Edward Snowden, who has identified himself as the person who leaked details of a secret US National Security Agency surveillance program.
Mr Lavrov, who is visiting Brazil, said on Tuesday that if a request arrives from Edward Snowden, "we will examine that request."
Mr Lavrov says he won't speculate on the likelihood of any such request - nor what action Russia would take if it were received.
Mr Snowden fled to Hong Kong after leaking word of a tracking program that collects the telephone records of millions of Americans and taps into computers of many Internet services to retrieve information about foreigners living outside the US.