LONDON: Discussions over the future of Julian Assange, who has been holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy in London for six years, are ongoing but the matter was not discussed during a recent visit by Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno, a British government spokesman said on Friday.

Moreno was in London this week to attend a global disabilities summit.

Speculation about Assan­ge’s future has grown after the Sunday Times newspaper reported senior officials from Ecuador and Britain were talking about how to remove him from the em­­bassy after revocation of his asylum, and a source close to him told Reuters the situation was coming to a head.

Ecuador’s president says his government is talking to British authorities about how to end Julian Assange’s asylum in its London embassy as long as the life of the WikiLeaks founder can be guaranteed.

Ecuador granted Assange asylum in 2012, but he faces arrest in Britain for breaching his bail terms and could be extradited to the United States. He would be tried there for his leaking of classified State Department documents.

Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno said in Madrid that nobody should remain under asylum “for too long” and that any change in Assange’s status should be the result of negotiations with all sides. “What we want is for his life not to be in danger,” Moreno said.

Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2018