Costa Rican President Oscar Arias said on Wednesday that foreign governments should keep on applying sanctions against Honduras’ interim government even as its leaders expressed interest in further negotiations on ending the standoff.
Arias, who sought unsuccessfully to mediate a compromise between ousted Honruran president Manuel Zelaya and his foes, said the interim administration “isn’t convinced” and “hasn’t yet recognized that President Zelaya should be reinstated.”
Arias told reporters at a regional summit in Costa Rica that “sanctions should continue to be applied.”
Some governments have frozen aid programs for Honduras or canceled visas for officials connected to the interim government.
The Costa Rican leader said acting Honduran President Roberto Micheletti had called him to ask that Arias send an envoy to Honduras to speak with all three branches of the interim government.
He said Micheletti had suggested Enrique Iglesias, the former longtime head of the Inter-American Development Bank. Arias did not say whether Iglesias would go.
Micheletti issued a statement on Wednesday calling Arias’ mediation “the best path to achieving a consensus in Honduras,” and he asked Arias to include all parts of society in the dialogue, including church groups, students, business groups, unions, political parties and news media.
“Our citizens need to support and broaden the San Jose dialogue in Honduras, that is, have a dialogue among our own people,” Micheletti wrote.
Last week, Micheletti’s government rejected a proposal by Arias that Zelaya resume the presidency in a coalition government of all parties and that amnesty be given to both sides.
Honduran officials said Zelaya would be arrested if he returned to his homeland.
In Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, pro-Zelaya protesters returned to the streets and blocked traffic in another of their daily demonstrations demanding his restoration to the presidency.
Backers of the government that was installed after the army flew Zelaya out of Honduras on June 28 have also held demonstrations.
Meanwhile, two Venezuelan diplomats remained holed up at their country’s embassy a week after the interim government ordered them to leave.
The interim government accuses Venezuela — whose President Hugo Chavez is a vocal ally of Zelaya’s — of threatening Honduras and interfering in its internal affairs. It gave the diplomats a 72-hour deadline to leave on July 21, but they refused, saying they didn’t recognize the government.
The embassy’s charge d’affaires, Ariel Vargas, vowed to hold out in the embassy as about 20 Zelaya supporters gathered outside seeking to block any forcible takeover.
“We can’t go out on the street for fear they will arrest us,” Vargas told reporters.
The interim government has said it will simply wait for the Venezuelans to leave.
Zelaya and a group of about 500 supporters remained at a Nicaraguan town on the border with Honduras.
On Wednesday, UN officials toured the camp “to see what these people’s health condition is,” said Nicaraguan Health Minister Guillermo Gonzalez, who accompanied the group.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS