Chavez is an outspoken critic of the US

He was speaking after US TV evangelist Pat Robertson called for his assassination in comments the US State Department said were "inappropriate".

Mr Robertson later apologised saying he was frustrated at Mr Chavez's constant accusations against Washington.

A senior representative of America's evangelical Christians says he is trying to meet Mr Chavez to apologise.

Mr Chavez said on Friday that Pat Robertson "was expressing the wishes of the US elite".

"If anything happens to me then the man responsible will be George W Bush. He will be the assassin," the Venezuelan president said at a public event. "This is pure terrorism."

Missionaries' safety

Earlier, the Rev Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, said he was seeking a meeting with Mr Chavez to distance US Christians from the remarks.

Pat Robertson has apologised for his call to "take out" Chavez

He is in Mexico, where he is meeting a friend of Mr Chavez, and if all goes well he will travel on to Caracas for an encounter that could embarrass the White House.

Mr Haggard says he wants to secure assurances from Mr Chavez about the safety of American evangelical missionaries working in Venezuela.

The Venezuelan government temporarily suspended permits for foreign missionaries on Friday so regulations for preachers in the country could be tightened.

"We were already working on this, but these declarations have made us speed things up," said chief of the Justice Ministry's religious affairs unit, Carlos Gonzalez.

Political rivalry

On Monday, Pat Robertson told viewers of his influential TV show, the 700 Club, that the US should act on Mr Chavez's recurrent complaints that the US was allegedly trying to assassinate him.

"I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," he said.

It comes amid tense relations between the two countries.

Washington regards the Venezuelan leader as a dangerous left-winger with ambitions to dominate South America, says the BBC Justin Webb in Caracas.

Mr Chavez - a friend of Cuban leader Fidel Castro - equally dislikes Mr Bush, and regularly suggests to his people that the Bush administration provides a military threat to Venezuela.

The two nations have recently broken off co-operation on combating illegal drugs, though America still buys Venezuelan oil. The nation is the world's fifth-largest producer.