US-Russia spy swap unfolds drama at Vienna airport
Saturday, 10 July 2010
Vienna, July 9 (Agencies): United States and Russia Friday played a spy swap game at Vienna airport with Washington deported 10 while Russian authorities believed to have released four.
Chartered Russian and US flights which took the spies to the Austrian capital took off within 15 minutes of each other after accomplishing the espionage exchange game.
The deal-to exchange the Russian spies who were arrested in the US on June 27 for prisoners being held in Russia-came after high-level negotiations led by Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta and his counterpart in Moscow, news agencies said as they cited unnamed perspons.
The exchange brings an end to one of the highest-profile US-Russia spy cases in history, and marks the largest spy swap since the 1980s--the days of the Cold War.
"This was an extraordinary case ... and the agreement we reached today provides a successful resolution for the United States and its interests," U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said.
Neither Washington nor Moscow confirmed the swap case.
A US jet carrying the 10 members of a Russian spy ring caught in the United States arrived from New York and parked next to a Russian Emergency Situations Ministry jet believed to have brought four Russians jailed for working for Western nations.
Vienna, near the old Iron Curtain frontier, has not seen such drama since the Cold War, when it was a traditional venue for espionage rivalry between the two superpowers.
Russian and US officials indicated that the deal, sealed less than two weeks after the FBI arrested the 10 suspects on June 27, was driven by increasingly close relations.
The last high-profile swap was in 1984, when US journalist Nicholas Daniloff was expelled from Russia the day before Gennady Zakharov, a Soviet official at the United Nations, came the other way after appearing for less than five minutes before a New York court.
Chartered Russian and US flights which took the spies to the Austrian capital took off within 15 minutes of each other after accomplishing the espionage exchange game.
The deal-to exchange the Russian spies who were arrested in the US on June 27 for prisoners being held in Russia-came after high-level negotiations led by Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta and his counterpart in Moscow, news agencies said as they cited unnamed perspons.
The exchange brings an end to one of the highest-profile US-Russia spy cases in history, and marks the largest spy swap since the 1980s--the days of the Cold War.
"This was an extraordinary case ... and the agreement we reached today provides a successful resolution for the United States and its interests," U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said.
Neither Washington nor Moscow confirmed the swap case.
A US jet carrying the 10 members of a Russian spy ring caught in the United States arrived from New York and parked next to a Russian Emergency Situations Ministry jet believed to have brought four Russians jailed for working for Western nations.
Vienna, near the old Iron Curtain frontier, has not seen such drama since the Cold War, when it was a traditional venue for espionage rivalry between the two superpowers.
Russian and US officials indicated that the deal, sealed less than two weeks after the FBI arrested the 10 suspects on June 27, was driven by increasingly close relations.
The last high-profile swap was in 1984, when US journalist Nicholas Daniloff was expelled from Russia the day before Gennady Zakharov, a Soviet official at the United Nations, came the other way after appearing for less than five minutes before a New York court.