Costa Rica's president held mediation talks today with the rivals for power in Honduras as international pressure grew for the return of ousted President Manuel Zelaya after last month's coup.
President Oscar Arias held separate meetings at his residence first with Mr Zelaya, and then with Roberto Micheletti, the interim president installed by Honduras' Congress after the June 28th 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 Organization 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's 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 the president's removal was lawful because he violated the constitution by seeking to lift presidential term limits. Mr Micheletti said today 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 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
Reuters