Mr Arias (left) won the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize for helping to solve Cold War conflicts in Central America. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
SAN JOSE (Costa Rica) - COSTA Rica's president held mediation talks on Thursday with the rivals for power in Honduras as international pressure grew for the return of ousted President Manuel Zelaya after last month's coup.
US suspends military aid
MR ZELAYA, who was elected in 2005 and was due to leave office in 2010, wants those who toppled him to give up power in 24 hours to allow his reinstatement as president of the coffee and textile exporting country, one of the poorest in the Americas Mr Zelaya, a logging magnate who was elected as a moderate, had angered his country's ruling elite and military by increasingly allying himself with Venezuela's firebrand leftist President Hugo Chavez, a fierce critic of US policies.
Honduran media on Thursday published a poll showing that 41 per cent of Hondurans thought that Mr Zelaya's ouster was justified. The CID-Gallup poll carried out between June 30 and July 4 found 28 per cent of those interviewed opposed the coup.
'Satisfied' Micheletti back to Honduras after talks
SAN JOSE - INTERIM Honduran leader Roberto Micheletti said he would return home on Thursday 'satisfied' after talks aimed at ending the political crisis which has gripped the country.
Mr Micheletti met Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, a Nobel Prize winner who is mediating in the dispute, but did not meet Honduran President Manuel Zelaya who was ousted in a military-backed coup over a week ago.
President Oscar Arias held separate meetings at his residence first with Mr Zelaya, and then with Mr Roberto Micheletti, the interim president installed by Honduras' Congress after the June 28 coup.
Costa Rican officials said Mr Arias hoped to bring the two together later for their first face-to-face meeting since Mr Zelaya's overthrow, which stoked tensions in Central America and posed a diplomatic test for US President Barack Obama.
Mr Arias won the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize for helping to solve Cold War conflicts in Central America.
The United States and the Organisation of American States are pressing for Mr Zelaya's peaceful reinstatement, which OAS chief Jose Miguel Insulza said was the key for a successful outcome to the talks in the Costa Rican capital San Jose.
'The stumbling block is that the de facto government accept the return of the constitutional government,' Mr Insulza told reporters in Washington. 'Everything else is negotiable.' But it remained to be seen whether Mr Micheletti, the former head of Honduras' Congress picked by the assembly to replace Mr Zelaya, would be willing to accept him back as president.
In the run up to the talks, Mr Micheletti had insisted Mr Zelaya's removal was lawful because he violated the constitution by seeking to lift presidential term limits.
Mr Micheletti said on Thursday he was ready to work for a solution 'within the framework of the constitution.' After meeting separately with Mr Arias, Mr Zelaya stressed that both the OAS and the United Nations General Assembly had called for his reinstatement. On Wednesday, Mr Zelaya called Mr Micheletti a 'criminal' and said he was guilty of treason.
Mr Insulza said that provided Mr Zelaya's restoration was accepted, other options, like bringing forward scheduled November presidential elections, forming a national unity government, or agreeing on an amnesty, were all open to negotiation.
For the OAS, which suspended Honduras on Saturday, early elections would be acceptable only if held after Mr Zelaya is restored and not under Mr Micheletti, Insulza said. -- REUTERS
