QUITO, Ecuador -- Ecuador's government acknowledged Tuesday that it had "temporarily restricted" WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's Internet access at its embassy in London after the whistleblowing site published documents from Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
A Foreign Ministry statement said that while it stands by its decision in 2012 to grant Assange asylum, it doesn't interfere in foreign elections. President Rafael Correa's government said it was acting on its own and not ceding to foreign pressures.
The ministry didn't specify the extent of the restrictions on Assange's access to the Internet, saying only that the limitations wouldn't affect WikiLeaks' ability to carry out its journalistic activities.
Earlier, the Ecuadorean government restated its commitment to political asylum at its embassy in London. "In view of recent speculations, the government of Ecuador reaffirms the validity of the asylum granted four years ago to Julian Assange," the statement said. "We also ratify that the protection given by the Ecuadorean state will continue while the circumstances that led to the granting of asylum remain."
The announcement of restricted Internet access confirmed WikiLeaks' claim that Ecuador was behind the cutoff but disputed its assertion that the decision was made because of U.S. pressure.
On Monday, the group tweeted: "We can confirm Ecuador cut off Assange's internet access Saturday, 5pm GMT, shortly after publication of Clinton's Goldman Sachs [speeches]." In follow-up messages posted Tuesday, the group claimed U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had personally intervened to ask Ecuador to stop Assange from publishing documents about Clinton. Citing "multiple US sources," WikiLeaks said the request was made on the sidelines of negotiations that took place last month in Colombia.
The State Department denied the allegation. "While our concerns about Wikileaks are longstanding, any suggestion that Secretary Kerry or the State Department were involved in shutting down Wikileaks is false," U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said in an email.
In the event of the loss of an Internet connection, WikiLeaks said unspecified "contingency plans" were in place and the site and its Twitter feed appeared to be working as usual. On Tuesday, it released another tranche of emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.
The disclosure was the 11th installation in a series of leaks that have captured the workings of Clinton's inner circle and included excerpts of her paid speeches to investment bank Goldman Sachs.
Staff members at WikiLeaks and the embassy either declined comment or didn't return messages.
Information for this article was contributed by Steven Erlanger and David E. Sanger of The New York Times.
A Section on 10/19/2016