LEADALL: US mission pries open dialogue in Honduras, all options open

By the German Press Agency dpa Oct 29, 2009, 22:04 GMT

   Tegucigalpa/The Hague - The United States directly intervened for the first time Thursday in the four-month-old Honduran crisis as its team of diplomats brought together representatives of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya and of the country's de facto government.

Even as negotiations resumed, the government of self-declared Honduran president Roberto Micheletti filed a complaint with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague against Brazil for having given Zelaya refuge at its embassy in Tegucigalpa.

At the same time, the United States appeared to modify its position on the crisis.

Tom Shannon, the State Department's assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere affairs and the head of the mission to Honduras, noted that Washington would be ready to accept that Zelaya not be reinstated if that is what comes out of negotiations among Hondurans.

The international community including the US has refused to recognize the government set up after the June 28 coup that ousted Zelaya. Since then, former Congress speaker Roberto Micheletti has moved into the presidency with the support of Congress, the Supreme Court and military.

'We - and not just the United States but the rest of the Inter- American community - have constructed these negotiations in a way that the solution be Honduran,' Shannon said. 'From my point of view, a deal is a deal: What the Hondurans can determine and sign among themselves we'll accept.'

'President Zelaya should be returned to office. But we recognize that we are operating in an environment in which at the end of the day Hondurans have to make this decision,' Shannon stressed.

He pointed to Zelaya himself as a safety valve for the whole process, which could indicate there may be no going back to the pre- coup state of things.

'President Zelaya is represented in this negotiation process, and anything that is agreed to in that is going to be agreed to by President Zelaya,' Shannon said.

Shannon further left open whether the United States would accept the outcome of the November 29 presidential elections. The vote had been scheduled before Zelaya's ouster, but Zelaya and the international community now reject its validity since it is being carried under what they see as illegitimate conditions.

Micheletti has insisted that neither he nor Zelaya should hold power and that someone else should be designated to head the country until the new president's scheduled inauguration on January 27.

   Three delegates designated by Zelaya and three representing Micheletti stayed seated at the negotiating table while the delegation led by Shannon launched talks and then left.

   Negotiations aimed at resolving the country's political standoff broke down late last week, prompting US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to telephone with both men.

Zelaya dragged his feet in coming to the table Thursday. His advisor Carlos Eduardo Reina told reporters that he would boycott the new round of talks.

But Zelaya then backed down and sent his envoys.

   Zelaya himself had met with Shannon and the rest of the US delegation late Wednesday, as had Micheletti.

The coup, Shannon noted, reflects not just a given series of events, but 'a larger, a more fundamental problem inside Honduran society, which is going to be addressed by the next government.'

Shannon and the rest of the US delegation arrived in Tegucigalpa Wednesday and had planned to return to Washington Thursday. But their success in getting the parties to return to the table persuaded them to extend the visit by one day.

   The high-profile US mission marked the first time since Zelaya was ousted on June 28 that Washington has taken a leading role in pressuring the leaders of the de facto government to restore democratic order.

   Instead, the US has acted only in concert with the joint negotiating team led by the Organization of American States.

   Marco Aurelio Garcia, foreign affairs advisor to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, played down the Honduran complaint against Brazil before the ICJ, arguing that the de facto government in Tegucigalpa enjoys no international recognition and thus has no rights before the court.

   'For the court to accept it, it would need to be a legitimate government. (Micheletti's) is not a government, he is a coup perpetrator who usurped power, he is not legitimate,' Garcia told Brazilian website Terra.

   In the application, Honduras claims Brazil is overstepping its authority by hosting the ousted president on its embassy premises in the Honduran capital since he secretly returned to the country on September 21.