Honduran talks advance, but rivals urge caution

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — The rivals for Honduras’ presidency toned down hopes for an end to the nation’s political standoff despite an apparent breakthrough by negotiators who said they had reached consensus on ousted President Manuel Zelaya’s return to office.

Zelaya, who has been holed up in the Brazilian Embassy since sneaking back into Honduras from his forced exile last month, said Wednesday that the final text of a deal is still being worked out. He told a radio station later that he had little confidence in the commitment of interim President Roberto Micheletti to reaching an agreement.

“I don’t believe in what the coup leaders say. I think that when it comes to the key point of rejecting the coup — which means my reinstatement to office — Micheletti will give another slap to the world because he will oppose it,” Zelaya told Radio Globo, a station that was closed by the interim government two weeks ago but has been broadcasting on the Internet.

Earlier Wednesday, Victor Meza, a negotiator for Zelaya, said representatives had reached consensus on the issue of Zelaya’s reinstatement, but he declined to give details until both Zelaya and Micheletti had approved the plan.

Micheletti’s office quickly released a statement saying that no definitive agreement had yet been reached and that talks would continue Thursday.

“There is no final accord on that point,” Micheletti’s office said of Zelaya’s return to the presidency.

Beatriz Valles, the foreign minister of the ousted government, said talks had been postponed until Thursday at Micheletti’s request.

The reported advances in Organization of American States-backed talks in Honduras’ capital raised hopes for an imminent solution to the seemingly intractable crisis set off by the June 28 coup.

“I don’t want to be excessively optimistic … but I think there have been significant advances that allow us to hope for a Honduran solution to a Honduran crisis,” OAS General-Secretary Jose Miguel Insulza told the OAS General Assembly in Washington on Wednesday.

Zelaya’s representatives have repeatedly made clear they will not accept any agreement that does not include his return to serve out his presidential term, which ends in January. Zelaya has warned that if he is not returned to office by Oct. 15, he would seek to postpone Nov. 29 presidential elections, which were scheduled before his ouster.

Micheletti has been under intense international pressure to restore Zelaya, who was toppled in a dispute over his efforts to change the Honduran constitution. For weeks, the interim government shrugged off the suspension of U.S. aid and other sanctions.

Top level diplomats from the U.S. and other countries flew to Honduras last week and pushed the two sides to the negotiating table — making clear that Zelaya’s reinstatement was the only way to end the Central American country’s diplomatic isolation.

Negotiators have said they have agreed on all other points in the pact, first proposed by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias.

The deal would include a truth commission to investigate the events leading up to the coup and a committee to ensure that both sides live up to the agreement.

It also requires Zelaya to give up his efforts to change the Honduran constitution, an initiative critics said he intended to use to extend his term in office by abolishing a ban on presidential re-election.

Zelaya denies that was his plan. Soldiers flew him into exile after he ignored a Supreme Court order to cancel a referendum to ask Hondurans if they wanted an assembly to rewrite the constitution.

The Honduran Congress then voted to install Micheletti as president.

Mayra Mejia, another Zelaya representative, said both sides had decided to renounce amnesty from prosecution. The Arias plan had included amnesty for both the coup perpetrators and Zelaya, who face abuses of power charges.