Some South American countries to skip EU-LAC summit over Honduras

May 5, 2010, 13:14 GMT

Buenos Aires - Several South American countries plan to skip the upcoming Madrid summit of the European Union and Latin America and the Caribbean (EU-LAC) if Honduran President Porfirio Lobo is invited, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said Tuesday.

The Union of South American Nations (Unasur) failed to reach consensus on the Honduras issue during a summit Tuesday near Buenos Aires.

Internation recognition of Honduras has been in question since then-president Manuel Zelaya was ousted by a coup in June 2009.

Lobo was won the presidency in a previously scheduled election in November. Many Latin American countries still refuse to recognize his government because the vote was organized by the interim regime that replaced Zelaya.

'The central point of dissent is that there are countries that recognized the Honduras government, and there are countries that did not,' Uruguayan Foreign Minister Luis Almagro said after Tuesday's summit talks.

Correa, who holds the Unasur rotating presidency, said that several countries in the organization 'could not attend a summit' with Honduras - including the May 15-18 EU-LAC meetings - because they regard Lobo's government as illegitimate.

'That annoyance is obvious, (it is) as if nothing had happened in Latin America and in Honduras, when there is a coup d'etat, when there is a latent conflict. Honduras is still outside the inter- American system,' Correa said.

He noted that Unasur countries asked him to tell Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero that they think 'an indiscretion has been committed in inviting a Honduran government that is not recognized by many countries.'

The opposition of several South American countries could also prevent Honduras from being re-admitted to the Organization of American States (OAS), if less than 75 per cent of the 33 voting countries were to oppose re-admission. Honduras's OAS membership was suspended after the coup.