July 3, 2013

It began as a seemingly offhand remark by the president of Bolivia, who said during a visit to Moscow that he might be happy to host Edward J. Snowden, the fugitive American former security contractor who is desperate to find asylum. It escalated into a major diplomatic scramble in which the Bolivian president’s plane was rerouted to Austria, apparently because of suspicions that Mr. Snowden was aboard.

Outraged Bolivian officials, insisting that Mr. Snowden was not on the plane, accused France, Portugal and Spain on Tuesday of acting under American pressure to rescind permission for President Evo Morales’s plane to traverse their airspace on the way back to Bolivia. Low on fuel, the plane’s crew won permission to land in Vienna.

After the plane spent 13 hours overnight on the tarmac at the Vienna airport, it took off at 11:30 a.m. local time on Wednesday, according to Peter Kleemann, a spokesman for the airport. Austrian media reported that the plane was bound for Bolivia; a stopover was planned in the Canary Islands for refueling.

Austria’s president, Heinz Fischer, told state radio that he visited Mr. Morales before his departure to “ensure that our procedures here in Vienna were all correct.” The two leaders also had the opportunity to discuss other topics, Mr. Fischer said, but declined to elaborate.

Mr. Morales appeared Wednesday morning before reporters who had gathered at the airport as rumors spread that Mr. Snowden might be aboard, ORF, an Austrian public television network, reported.

“At the moment there is nothing we can do but wait for permission for a flyover,” said Mr. Morales, speaking through a translator. “Spain is now consulting with the U.S.A. whether the plane can fly over Spanish airspace.” The president, his staff and four pilots were forced to spend the night in the airport’s V.I.P. area. Mr. Morales referred to his unscheduled stop in Vienna as “being held hostage.”

Asked by a reporter about Mr. Snowden’s presence on his airplane, Mr. Morales declined to comment directly, but insisted that it would be impossible to take along a passenger who no longer holds a valid passport. The United States revoked Mr. Snowden’s passport on June 22 after charging him with espionage.

“How could we have a person in our plane who has problems with his homeland? He has never sought asylum in Bolivia,” Mr. Morales said. “We are very responsible in our actions and our respect for international conventions.”

Bolivia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Sacha Llorentty Solíz, said in Geneva on Wednesday that he believed that the order to divert the plane came from the United States, Reuters reported. The ambassador added that the search of the plane violated international law, the report said.

After the plane touched down in Vienna, the foreign minister of Bolivia, David Choquehuanca, referring to France, Portugal and Spain’s apparent refusal to allow Mr. Morales’s plane in their airspace, said, “They say it was due to technical issues, but after getting explanations from some authorities we found that there appeared to be some unfounded suspicions that Mr. Snowden was on the plane.”

“We don’t know who invented this big lie,” Mr. Choquehuanca said at a news conference in La Paz, Bolivia. “We want to express our displeasure because this has put the president’s life at risk.”

Before Mr. Morales’s plane left the Vienna airport, the crew awaited authorization to continue through other European countries’ airspace, the Austrian authorities said. France granted authorization Wednesday morning, although a spokesman

for the Spanish Foreign Ministry said it would not comment, and there was no immediate comment from Portugal.

Karl-Heinz Grundböck, a spokesman for the Austrian Interior Ministry, said Austrian border authorities carried out a routine check of the passports of everyone aboard after the plane landed and were also granted permission to search the plane to ensure that Mr. Snowden was not aboard. “The rumors were just that,” Mr. Grundböck said.

Rubén Saavedra, the Bolivian defense minister, who was on the plane with Mr. Morales, accused the Obama administration of being behind the action by France and Portugal, calling it “an attitude of sabotage and a plot by the government of the United States.”

There was no immediate response by officials in Washington.

“We were in flight; it was completely unexpected,” Mr. Saavedra said on the Telesur cable network. “The president was very angry.”

In a possible sign of further suspicion about the passenger manifest, Mr. Saavedra said Italy had also refused to give permission for the plane to fly over its airspace.

On Monday, Mr. Morales, who was attending an energy conference in Moscow, was asked in an interview on the Russia Today television network if he would consider giving asylum to Mr. Snowden, 30, who has been at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow for more than a week.

“Yes, why not?” Mr. Morales responded. “Of course, Bolivia is ready to take in people who denounce — I don’t know if this is espionage or monitoring. We are here.”

He said, though, that Bolivia had not received a request from Mr. Snowden, despite news reports to the contrary.

It was already clear by then that the Moscow conference had been overshadowed by the drama of Mr. Snowden and his disclosures about American intelligence programs, which have deeply embarrassed the Obama administration.

President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, who was also at the conference, suggested that he would offer Mr. Snowden asylum but said he did not plan to fly him to Venezuela.

But Mr. Morales’s remarks appeared to open the door. At least that is the way they were interpreted.

The problems began even before Mr. Morales left Moscow, Mr. Choquehuanca said. On Monday, Portugal, without explanation, withdrew permission for Mr. Morales’s plane to stop in Lisbon to refuel, the foreign minister said. That required Bolivian officials to get permission from Spain to refuel in the Canary Islands.

The next day, after taking off from Moscow, Mr. Morales’s plane was just minutes from entering French airspace, according to Mr. Saavedra, when the French authorities informed the pilot that the plane could not fly over France.

There was also plenty of confusion in Moscow over how Mr. Snowden could possibly have left undetected on a government aircraft.

Government planes carrying foreign officials to diplomatic meetings in Moscow typically arrive and depart from Vnukovo Airport, which is also the main airfield used by the Russian government, rather than from Sheremetyevo, to which Mr. Snowden arrived from Hong Kong on June 23, hours after American officials had sought his extradition.

The speculation that Mr. Snowden would hitch a ride on a government jet was discounted by the fact that the plane would have to first make a quick flight from one Moscow airport to the other.