Edward Snowden granted permission to stay in Russia for 3 …

Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden will be allowed to stay in Russia for three more years, his lawyer said.

"The decision on the application has been taken and therefore starting Aug. 1, 2014, Edward Snowden has received a three-year residential permit," attorney Analtoly Kucherena said on Thursday.

But, Kucherena clarified, the whistleblower has not been granted political asylum, which would allow him to stay in the country permanently. That status must be secured through a different procedure but Kucherena did not say whether his client was seeking it.

Last year, Snowden was stranded in a Moscow airport while traveling from Hong Kong to Cuba. He reportedly spent a month in the airport before he was granted asylum in Russia for one year.

His current whereabouts have not been made public.

Kucherena's announcement comes at a time of increased tension between the United States and Russia. Also on Thursday, Russia banned most food imports from the West in retaliation to sanctions over the countrys actions and suspected actions in Ukraine.

The U.S. and EU accuse Russia of supplying arms to pro-Moscow rebels in Ukraine and Russia annexed the war-torn country's Crimean Peninsula in March.

In June 2013, revelations about the NSAs spying programs first published in The Washington Post and The Guardian sparked an international debate over state surveillance and privacy. Snowden had handed over thousands of classified documents to journalist Barton Gellman, journalist Glenn Greenwald and documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras.

Ever since, he has lived a life in exile.

"I don't think there's ever been any question that I'd like to go home,"Snowden told Brian Williams of NBC News in May. From Day 1, Ive said, Im doing this to serve my country. Now, whether amnesty or clemency ever becomes a possibility is not for me to say. That's a debate for the public and the government to decide. But, if I could go anywhere in the world, that place would be home."

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