TEGUCIGALPA - OUSTED Honduran leader Manuel Zelaya met with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington on Tuesday, as the leaders who sent him away hinted at a possible exit in the crisis.
BIGGEST CRISIS FOR OBAMA'S LATIN AMERICA POLICY
THE Honduran crisis is the biggest challenge yet for US President Barack Obama's Latin America policy, in a region where the United States holds great influence.
'I will return to Honduras, there's no doubt about that,' Mr Zelaya said in Nicaragua late on Monday.
Mr Zelaya - who the army prevented from landing in the capital Tegucigalpa during violent protests on Sunday - could come back if Congress grants him amnesty, a spokesman for the Supreme Court told AFP.
'The only one with the power to give amnesty is the Congress,' said Danilo Izaguirre, spokesman for Honduras' Supreme Court.
Mr Zelaya's highest-level meeting with the US administration so far in the crisis came on Tuesday amid increasing pressure on the leaders who packed him away on June 28 over a dispute with the courts, politicians and the army over his plans to change the constitution.
'We are open to dialogue. We want to be heard,' interim leader Roberto Micheletti said on Tuesday, amid world-wide condemnation for the coup, as well as violence on the streets.
A spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Tuesday condemned 'excessive force' by authorities quelling protests in Honduras, after two deaths in weekend clashes with the army.
A commission from the interim government also was in Washington as Mr Zelaya met with Mrs Clinton.
Roberto Micheletti, who interim leaders insisted took power in a 'constitutional succession,' not a coup, said that Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, had agreed to mediate the crisis.
Meanwhile, pro-Zelaya protests sprang up Tuesday for the ninth consecutive day, with thousands on the streets of the capital Tegucigalpa.
'We're going to continue with peaceful resistance, despite the repression,' union leader Juan Barahona told AFP.
UN chief Ban Ki Moon said on Monday that the Organization of American States should work to restore constitutional order, after the 34-member pan-American body suspended Honduras at an emergency session over the weekend. -- AFP
