CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The quest by NSA leaker Edward Snowden for a safe haven has taken a turn toward Latin America, with offers for asylum coming from the leftist presidents of Nicaragua and Venezuela.

But there were no immediate signs that efforts were underway to bring him to either nation after Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua made their offers during separate speeches in their home countries on Friday.

The offers came one day after leftist South American leaders gathered to denounce the rerouting of Bolivian President Evo Morales’ plane over Europe amid reports that the fugitive American was aboard.

Snowden, who is being sought by the United States, has asked for asylum in more than 20 countries, including Nicaragua and Venezuela. Many other nations have turned him down.

“As head of state, the government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela decided to offer humanitarian asylum to the young American Edward Snowden so that he can live in the homeland” of independence leader Simon Bolivar and the late President Hugo Chavez without “persecution from the empire,” Maduro said, referring to the United States.

Maduro said several other Latin American governments have also expressed their intention of taking a similar stance by offering asylum for the cause of “dignity”.

Chavez, who hand-picked Maduro as his successor, often engaged in similar defiance, criticising US-style capitalism and policies. In a 2006 speech to the UN General Assembly of world leaders, Chavez called President George W Bush the devil, saying the podium reeked of sulfur after the US president’s address. He also accused Washington of plotting against him, expelled several diplomats and drug-enforcement agents and threatened to stop sending oil to the US.

Maduro made the asylum offer during a speech marking the anniversary of Venezuela’s independence. It was not immediately clear if there were any conditions to Venezuela’s offer.

But his critics said Maduro’s decision is nothing but an attempt to veil the current undignified conditions of Venezuela, including one of the world’s highest inflation rates and a shortage of basic products such as toilet paper.

Asked earlier this week about the possibility that any countries in the region would offer Snowden asylum, Geoff Thale, programme director at the Washington Office on Latin America think tank, said that he thought Ortega would be careful not to damage his country’s relationship with the US.

“Ortega has been tremendously successful at exploiting both the ALBA relationship and the US relationship,” Thale said, referring to the ALBA leftist trade bloc that provides Nicaragua with petroleum subsidies. Although Ortega is publicly seen as anti-American, “Nicaragua and the US cooperate very closely on drug interdiction and the US and Nicaraguan militaries work very closely, too,” Thale said before the asylum offer was made.

Ortega said Friday he was willing to make the same asylum offer “if circumstances allow it,”, although he didn’t say what those circumstances would be when he spoke during a speech in Managua.

He said the Nicaraguan embassy in Moscow received Snowden’s application for asylum and that it is studying the request.