Bolivia 'could close' US embassy after plane incident

The warning came as South America's leftist leaders offered him support at a special summit on Thursday.

His plane was forced to land in Austria on Tuesday after several European nations 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 pressurising European countries into refusing him passage.

"My hand would not shake to close the US embassy," Agence France-Presse news agency quoted Mr Morales as saying.

"We have dignity, sovereignty. Without the United States, we are better politically, 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 Mr Snowden.

The former CIA contractor is believed to be holed up at the transit area of Moscow airport after leaking details of a vast US surveillance programme.

Mr 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.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa he and the other leaders were offering full "support" to Mr Morales while Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner called for an apology.

"I'm asking those who violated the law in calm but serious manner, to take responsibility for the errors made, it's the least they can do," the Associated Press quoted her as saying.

France has apologised for the plane incident, blaming it on "conflicting information".

Demonstrators marched on the French embassy in La Paz on Wednesday, burning the French flag and demanding the expulsion of the ambassador to Bolivia.

Mr Morales' plane took off from Vienna on Wednesday morning and arrived back in La Paz on Wednesday night.