MANAGUA - OUSTED Honduran president Manuel Zelaya could return home as soon as this weekend, his Nicaraguan counterpart Daniel Ortega said on Friday.

'I want to tell the Honduran people what Manuel Zelaya has stated... this Saturday or more likely Sunday, he will return,' Mr Ortega said as he greeted Taiwanese President Ma Ying-Jeou.

Honduras has been in turmoil since early on Sunday, when Mr Zelaya was arrested by security forces and forced into exile in Costa Rica.

The architects of the coup had been concerned by Mr Zelaya's moves to defy a high court judgment against a planned constitutional referendum.

The head of the Organisation of American States arrived in Honduras on Friday for talks to try to resolve the crisis.

The OAS has given interim president Roberto Micheletti and other coup leaders until Saturday to reinstate Mr Zelaya, or face being ejected from the bloc.

Mr Oretga - a leftist who once led Nicaragua's Sandinista rebels - said Mr Zelaya had not yet decided how to return.

'He is going to return by land, by air, we still don't know,' said OMr rtega, who said he spoke with the Honduran leader late on Thursday.

Mr Zelaya has vowed to return to the country accompanied by the presidents of Ecuador and Argentina and Guatemalan Nobel prize winner Rigoberta Menchu.

An Argentine government source told AFP that President Cristina Kirchner would travel to Washington on Friday, a stop on route to Honduras. -- AFP