JULIAN Assange may be forced to leave the Ecuadorian embassy in London after the South American country's foreign minister reportedly described his current situation as "untenable".
The Wikileaks founder has been holed up in the embassy since 2012 after he was granted asylum by Ecuador following an allegation of sexual assault in Sweden, which he strongly denied but have since been dropped.
However, he still faces arrest by British police for failing to comply with the terms of his 2012 bail.
He has been unable to leave the building, in London's wealthy Knightsbridge district, for the past five years without risking arrest and extradition.
Mr Assange also fears he will be handed over the US and put on trial after Wikileaks published leaked top-secret US military documents in 2010.
Now, the Australian national has allegedly been targeted by Ecuadorian president Lenin Moreno after criticising his overseas allies on Twitter.
Foreign Minister Maria Fernanda Espinosa told reporters Ecuador was "considering and exploring the possibility of mediation" to end the five-year impasse.
She said: "No solution will be achieved without international cooperation and the cooperation of the United Kingdom, which has also shown interest in seeking a way out."
Last year, the Ecuadorian president urged Assange to avoid controversial and inflammatory political statements after he angered Madrid by tweeting messages of support for the Catalan independence movement, which has become Spain's worst constitutional crisis for four decades.
Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis accused Assange of "trying to interfere and manipulate" after he met with a prominent Catalan pro-independence figure.
And Moreno said in an interview with El Pais: "We have reminded Mr Assange that he has no reason to interfere in Ecuadorian politics because his status does not allow it.
"Nor in that of nations that are our friends. He does not have the right to do so and he has committed himself to this."
But Assange hit back on Twitter: "If President Moreno wants to gag my reporting of human rights abuses in Spain he should say so explicitly--together with the legal basis."