Bolivian President Evo Morales has threatened to close the US embassy in Bolivia after his official plane was banned from European airspace.
The warning came as four other South American leaders offered him support at a special summit on Thursday.
Evo Morales’ plane was forced to land in Austria on Tuesday after France, Portugal, Italy and Spain apparently barred it from flying through their airspace.
There were unfounded suspicions that US fugitive Edward Snowden was on board.
The Bolivian president blamed Washington for pressurizing European countries into refusing him passage.
“My hand would not tremble to close the US embassy,” President Evo Morales said.
“We have dignity, sovereignty. Without America, we are better off politically and democratically.”
His presidential jet was rerouted as he travelled from a meeting in Russia where he had suggested he would be willing to consider an asylum application from Edward Snowden.
Former CIA contractor Edward Snowden is believed to be holed up at the transit area of Moscow airport after leaking details of a vast US surveillance programme.
Evo Morales was joined by the presidents of Argentina, Uruguay, Ecuador, Venezuela and Suriname at a meeting to discuss the plane dispute in the Bolivian city of Cochabamba on Thursday.
The leaders issued a statement after the meeting demanding an explanation from France, Portugal, Italy and Spain over their actions.
President Evo Morales has threatened to close the US embassy in Bolivia after his official plane was banned from European airspace
The US was not mentioned in the statement, but several of the leaders criticized the Americans in comments after the meeting.
“If this had happened to the president of the United States, it probably would have been grounds for war,” said Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa.
“They think they can attack, crush, destroy international law.”
Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said in a TV interview on Friday that Madrid had “no reason to apologize”.
He said airspace was never closed to Evo Morales’ plane, but that the delay in Austria meant the flight permit had expired and had to be renewed.
Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo also said in reference to Edward Snowden: “They told us he was inside [the plane].”
His comment is the first official recognition by the European states that the incident with Evo Morales’ plane was connected with the Snowden affair.
However, he did not say who had given the information to the Spanish authorities.
France earlier apologized for the plane incident, blaming it on “conflicting information”.
The US state department has not commented directly on the latest claims, saying only that Washington had “been in touch with a broad range of countries” over the Snowden case.
Demonstrators marched on the French embassy in La Paz on Wednesday, burning the French flag and demanding the expulsion of the ambassador to Bolivia.
Evo Morales’ plane took off from Vienna on Wednesday morning and arrived back in La Paz on Wednesday night.
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The plane of Bolivia’s President Evo Morales plane on Moscow airport had to be diverted to Austria amid suspicion that US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden was on board, the Bolivian foreign minister has said.
Officials in both Austria and Bolivia said Edward Snowden was not on the plane.
France and Portugal reportedly refused to allow the Moscow-Bolivia flight to cross their airspace.
Edward Snowden is reportedly seeking asylum in Bolivia and 20 other countries to avoid extradition to the US.
Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca told reporters on Tuesday that France and Portugal had closed their airspace over the “huge lie” that Edward Snowden, 30, was on board.
“We don’t know who invented this lie, but we want to denounce to the international community this injustice with the plane of President Evo Morales,” he said.
Austrian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Schallenberg said Edward Snowden was not on board the Bolivian leader’s aircraft.
The Bolivian defense minister, also on the flight, pilloried the US after the unscheduled landing.
“This is a hostile act by the United States state department which has used various European governments,” Ruben Saavedra said.
The plane of Bolivia’s President Evo Morales plane had to be diverted to Austria amid suspicion that Edward Snowden was on board
The Falcon aircraft was reportedly allowed to refuel in Spain before the jet went on to Vienna. President Evo Morales was said to be at the airport in Vienna discussing his return route to Bolivia early on Wednesday.
French officials said they could not confirm whether they had denied permission for President Evo Morales’ plane to fly over their territory. Portuguese officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
The Bolivian president had been on a visit to Moscow, where Edward Snowden, a former CIA contractor, has reportedly been holed up in an airport transit area since arriving from Hong Kong on June 23.
President Evo Morales told Russian television that Bolivia had not yet received an application from Edward Snowden, however, his request, if sent, would be considered.
“Bolivia is ready to accept people who disclose espionage if one can call it this way,” he said.
President Evo Morales and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro had been in Moscow for a meeting of gas-exporting countries.
Nicolas Maduro said he had not formally received an asylum request, but expressed support for Edward Snowden, saying he “deserves the world’s protection” from the United States.
“Why are they persecuting him? What has he done? Did he launch a missile and kill someone? Did he rig a bomb and kill someone? No. He is preventing war,” he told Reuters news agency.
Edward Snowden withdrew his application to Russia after President Vladimir Putin said he could stay only on condition that he stopped damaging Russia’s “American partners” with his leaks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
He is wanted by the US on charges of leaking secrets he gathered while working as a contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA), America’s electronic spying agency.
On Tuesday, National Intelligence Director James Clapper apologized for telling Congress in March that the NSA did not have a policy of gathering data on millions of Americans.
He said in a letter to Dianne Feinstein, head of the Senate intelligence committee, that his answer had been “clearly erroneous”.
The leaking of thousands of classified intelligence documents prompted revelations that the US has been systematically seizing vast amounts of phone and web data.
WikiLeaks, which says it is advising Edward Snowden, said most of his asylum requests had been handed to the Russian consulate at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport late on Sunday for delivery to the relevant embassies in the capital.
Edward Snowden asylum requests:
- Rejected: Austria, Brazil, Finland, India, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Spain, Switzerland
- Withdrawn: Russia
- Pending: Bolivia, China, Cuba, Ecuador, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Netherlands, Nicaragua
- Unconfirmed: France, Venezuela
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