Honduras rejects OAS appeal to restore president

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Honduras rebuffed a personal appeal from the Americas' top international diplomat Friday, refusing to restore President Manuel Zelaya and setting the stage for a dramatic showdown when the ousted leader returns to reclaim power this weekend.

Jose Miguel Insulza, who heads the Organization of American States, said after meeting with Honduras' Supreme Court, Attorney General and other political figures that he had found no willingness to return Zelaya to office ahead of a Saturday morning deadline. Zelaya was toppled in a military-backed coup on Sunday and flown out of the country.

"We wanted to ask that this situation be reversed," Insulza told a news conference in the Honduran capital, where he had arrived Friday on a personal mission to demand Zelaya's reinstatment. "Unfortunately, one must say that there appears to be no willingness to do this."

The OAS will meet on Saturday to decide whether to expel Honduras from the regional organization, he said, a move that could lead to further sanctions against one of the Americas' poorest countries. Suspension by the OAS could also encourage other organizations and countries to suspend aid and loans to Honduras.

Hours earlier, Honduras' Supreme Court, which had authorized Sunday's coup, said it wouldn't agree to reinstate the toppled leftist leader.

"Insulza asked Honduras to reinstate Zelaya, but the president of the court categorically answered that there is an arrest warrant for him," said court spokesman Danilo Izaguirre, referring to Supreme Court President Jorge Rivera. "Now the OAS has to decide what it will do."

Insulza said late Friday that Honduran officials had given him documents showing that charges are pending or have been brought against Zelaya, charges that purportedly justify the coup.

Insulza had conceded before traveling to Honduras that his mission was unlikely to succeed, saying: "It will be very hard to turn things around in a couple of days."

During the trip, the diplomat also met with the two main candidates in Honduras' Nov. 29 elections, as well with the leftist Popular Block, an umbrella group of farm, labor and student groups that largely supports Zelaya.

But he said he would not see Roberto Micheletti, whom Congress named president after Zelaya's ouster, in order to avoid legitimizing the government.

Micheletti's foreign minister, Enrique Ortez, said that Insulza "can negotiate all he wants, except for Zelaya's situation."

"That is not negotiable because he cannot return to Honduras, and if he does he will be arrested and tried," Ortez said.