Delegates representing the ousted and interim governments of Honduras failed to forge an agreement during a second day of talks and no fixed date was set for future negotiations.
The only consensus reached between representatives of forcibly exiled Honduran President Manuel Zelaya and de facto leader Roberto Micheletti was that they would meet again, mediator and Costa Rican President Oscar Arias said following Friday’s negotiations.
“It is not viable that a conflict this deep could be solved in one meeting,” said Arias, adding the date for the next round of talks would be announced “in the coming days.”
Friday’s meetings took place without Zelaya and Micheletti, each of whom met separately with Arias on Thursday but refused to talk together. Each continues to insist that the other give up claims to lead the country.
Silvia Ayala, a leftist lawmaker with Zelaya’s delegations, said the sides agreed to let Arias set the date for future talks, but urged that they be held soon “because the country can’t support weeks of this intolerance.”
Former Honduran Foreign Minister Carlos Lopez, of the Micheletti delegation, said his side hasn’t ruled out the possibility of early elections as a way out of the crisis. The elections are currently scheduled for November.
Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernandez received Zelaya when arrived in the country on Friday with full military honors and promised to speak for him at the upcoming summit of the Nonaligned Movement in Egypt.
Micheletti, the congressional leader who was sworn in as president when the military threw Zelaya out of the country on June 28, was back in Honduras, where he brushed off harsh criticism from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a Zelaya supporter.
Chavez “said he was going to invade and he didn’t invade us,” Micheletti said.
“He said he was going to hold back fuel to Honduras and he didn’t. He said he was going to bring Manuel Zelaya back one day and he didn’t. Hugo Chavez is losing credibility in the world,” Micheletti said.
Chavez denounced the US-backed talks in Costa Rica and said Micheletti should have been arrested instead of participating.
“How horrible to see a legitimate president receiving a usurper and giving him the same treatment,” Chavez told a news conference in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, referring to Arias’ Thursday night meeting with Micheletti.
Chavez also said that the US and US President Barack Obama should be putting more pressure on Honduras to return Zelaya to power.
“Why haven’t they recalled their ambassador to Honduras? Why haven’t they supported sanctions? Economic sanctions? Political sanctions? ... Do something. Obama, do something,” he said.
Obama’s administration, the UN and the Organization of American States have demanded that Zelaya be returned to power so he can serve out a term that ends in January.
No foreign government has recognized Micheletti.
But US officials have promoted the talks in Costa Rica’s capital, hoping to ease Zelaya back into the presidency while resolving the concerns of Honduras’ Supreme Court, Congress and military, which say they legally removed the president for violating the constitution by maneuvering to extend his time in power.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
SPIRITUAL COUPLE: Martha Louise has said she can talk with angels, while her husband, Durek Verrett, claims that he communicates with a broad range of spirits Social media influencers, reality stars and TV personalities were among the guests as the Norwegian king’s eldest child, Princess Martha Louise, married a self-professed US shaman on Saturday in a wedding ceremony following three days of festivities. The 52-year-old Martha Louise and Durek Verrett, who claims to be a sixth-generation shaman from California, tied the knot in the picturesque small town of Geiranger, one of Norway’s major tourist attractions located on a fjord with stunning views. Following festivities that started on Thursday, the actual wedding ceremony took place in a large white tent set up on a lush lawn. Guests
Thailand has netted more than 1.3 million kilograms of highly destructive blackchin tilapia fish, the government said yesterday, as it battles to stamp out the invasive species. Shoals of blackchin tilapia, which can produce up to 500 young at a time, have been found in 19 provinces, damaging ecosystems in rivers, swamps and canals by preying on small fish, shrimp and snail larvae. As well as the ecological impact, the government is worried about the effect on the kingdom’s crucial fish-farming industry. Fishing authorities caught 1,332,000kg of blackchin tilapia from February to Wednesday last week, said Nattacha Boonchaiinsawat, vice president of a parliamentary
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious