Ecuador has asked the Kremlin for talks over the fate of fugitive US intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden, a Russian state-owned broadcaster said today.

Snowden, who is believed to be holed up in the transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, has applied for asylum in the South American country. He flew to Russia from Hong Kong last Sunday.

Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino made the request, Rossiya 24 reported. Ecuador has said Snowden would need to be on the country’s territory to be granted refugee status.

But experts say this could also include the Ecuadorean embassy in Moscow. To get there, the US citizen would have to pass through Russian border controls.

US authorities, however, have cancelled Snowden’s passport and are demanding the extradition from Russia of the “traitor.” Russian Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Alexei Pushkov called the case “tragic.” “The idealist Snowden was apparently convinced that it would be like in a Hollywood movie: he would blow the whistle, and democracy would prevail,” he wrote on Twitter. “But life and the US are harder.”