OAS agrees to send delegation to Honduras to spur interim government to talks

OAS agrees to send delegation to Honduras

WASHINGTON — The Organization of American States agreed Wednesday to send a delegation to Honduras to try to persuade its interim government to negotiate with international mediators seeking the return of ousted President Manuel Zelaya.

OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza said that the organization had not decided in Wednesday’s meeting who would represent the delegation. However, he was expected name up to five foreign ministers of member countries by Friday and hoped the delegation could travel next week to Honduras.

Mediators hope that interim President Roberto Micheletti can be pressured to accept a plan proposed by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias under which Zelaya would return to power until new elections could be held.

Insulza said after the meeting that the delegation would back Arias’s plan.

“This delegation is a continuation of Oscar Arias’s work,” he said, speaking in Spanish.

Zelaya, who was whisked out of the country in a June 28 coup condemned worldwide, has said negotiations mediated by Arias last month floundered because of Micheletti’s refusal to consider his reinstatement.

Separately, the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights announced Wednesday that it would send a delegation to Honduras from Aug. 17-21 to investigate alleged abuses during the coup.

The commission, an independent branch of the OAS, said that it sent a letter to Honduras’s interim government detailing its plans and that Honduras is required to allow the visit because it is a signatory of the American Convention on Human Rights.