Honduras interim government open to early election

Interim government head Roberto Micheletti said holding a referendum on bringing back the leftist president to serve out the last few months of his term was also possible, although it would be "difficult" to do so immediately.

Conveying a more conciliatory tone than in recent days, Micheletti said he would be "in total agreement" with bringing forward a November 29 presidential election to calm a storm of international condemnation of Sunday's military coup.

"I have no objection if it would be a way of resolving these problems," he told reporters.

The OAS, which groups most of the countries in the Western Hemisphere including the United States, has given the interim leadership until Saturday to restore Zelaya or be suspended from the body.

The Honduran administration has so far rebuffed any attempts to bring back Zelaya, who was ousted in a dawn military coup in a dispute over presidential term limits that has become the biggest political crisis in Central America since the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989.

The coup in the impoverished coffee and textile exporting country of 7 million people has created a test for regional diplomacy and for U.S. commitment to shoring up democracy in Latin America.

OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza will visit Honduras on Friday. According to Zelaya, who arrived in El Salvador late on Thursday for talks with the government there, Insulza will deliver an ultimatum to return him to office and will not negotiate.

"We hope the coup leaders recognise the damage they are doing to the country and the world and allow the return of President Zelaya," Insulza told Reuters in Guyana.

Honduran coup backers, headed by Micheletti, say the ouster was legal because it was ordered by the Supreme Court to stop Zelaya from seeking public support for a constitutional change to let presidents seek re-election beyond one four-year term. They say Zelaya was himself acting illegally.