TEGUCIGALPA – Honduras' leader, Roberto Micheletti, said ahead of a visit to the country by senior U.S. diplomats that ousted President Mel Zelaya will not be restored to power and that no political solution is possible before presidential elections scheduled for Nov. 29.

“We’re not going to fix anything at all, not (through) dialogue or anything, unless it’s after the elections,” Micheletti told a press conference at the presidential palace on Tuesday.

“Everything from here forward must be (linked with) the issue of the elections,” he said in reference to balloting that the United States and the European Union say they will not recognize if Zelaya, ousted in a coup on June 28, is not reinstated beforehand.

“We’ve been very clear. There’s no reinstatement; we can talk about the issue of a third party (other than Micheletti or Zelaya)” serving out the rest of Zelaya’s term.

He said he spoke by telephone last weekend with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and that the two discussed the elections, talks between his and Zelaya’s representatives, and the upcoming visit by Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon, who was to arrive on Wednesday along with two other senior U.S. officials to try to foster a solution to the Honduran standoff.

Talks between representatives of Zelaya and the Honduras government broke down last weekend over Zelaya's insistence on reassuming power and the Honduras government's reluctance to accept his reinstatement .


State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said on Tuesday that “the clock is running,” since the lack of an agreement threatens the legitimacy of the elections called for Nov. 29.

“We want to see an election, which is coming in about exactly a month, to enjoy the kind of international legitimacy that these people of Honduras deserve for their government,” he said.

In what has the appearance of targeted kidnapping and killing since Zelaya arrived back in country, several family members of officials of the Micheletti government have been killed or kidnapped in the last week -- including Micheletti's nephew and the deputy defense minister.

Zelaya, who slipped back into the country on Sept. 21 and remains holed up at the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, claims he has made numerous concessions to achieve an accord with Micheletti.

However, Zelaya’s delegation to the talks has remained steadfastly opposed to Micheletti’s suggestion that both men step aside in favor of an interim president.

Mayra Mejia, a member of the ousted president’s camp, said last Friday that “if the coup d’etat can’t be reversed, no democracy in Central America and Latin America can be at ease, because (putschists) will find an ideal, simple path: stage a coup and whitewash it later with an election.”

In the meantime, the Organization of American States, the United States and the European Union have been pressing the Honduras government to accept the San Jose Accord, a proposal put forward by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias.

The plan calls for Zelaya to return and lead a national unity government for the few months left in his term, and for a political amnesty that would protect both sides in the dispute.

Time is running out before presidential elections scheduled for Nov. 29, as both the European Union and Washington have said they will not recognize the winner of that balloting unless Zelaya is restored to office beforehand. Elections have traditionally been the only way that coups and changes of government have been peacefully resolved in Latin American history.

According to US Congressman Eliot Engel, Chairman of the US House of Representative Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, “The presidential candidates in Honduras have asked the Organization of American States (OAS) to provide international observers for the country’s November 29th election. I urge OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza to grant this request, so that an effective election monitoring effort can be put into place.”