Spain says it has no reason to apologise for refusing to allow a plane carrying Bolivian President Evo Morales to fly over its airspace.

In an interview on state television on Friday, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Garcia-Margallo, denied that the country’s airspace was closed to the Bolivian leader earlier this week. He said a permit granted on Monday for the plane to go through Spanish airspace had expired when Morales was grounded in Austria, after France and Portugal had also refused to let his plane fly through their airspace.

The permit was later reissued and the presidential plane stopped to refuel in Spain's Canary Islands on Wednesday, on its way back to Bolivia.