WASHINGTON – Arturo Valenzuela was approved by the Senate as the top U.S. diplomat for the Americas after Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) lifted the hold he had put on the nomination to protest the administration’s opposition to the coup in Honduras.

President Barack Obama nominated the Chilean-born Valenzuela in May for the post of assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs.

But the nomination has been stalled since July, when DeMint put a hold on the nominee to register his unhappiness with the Obama administration’s rejection of the June 28 toppling of Honduran President Mel Zelaya.

The hold followed a confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in which Valenzuela described the putsch in Honduras as “not legal” and “unacceptable.”

DeMint announced Thursday that he was lifting the holds on Valenzuela and on the nomination of the current assistant secretary, Thomas Shannon, as U.S. ambassador to Brazil.

The South Carolina senator said his decision was based on assurances from Shannon and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Washington would recognize the winner of Honduras’ Nov. 29 presidential election regardless of whether Zelaya was reinstated.

Yet a State Department source told Efe Friday that the U.S. government “is committed to the accord” signed last week by Zelaya and Honduran de facto leader Roberto Micheletti, which called for the country’s Congress to vote on the president’s restoration and for the creation of a national unity government.

U.S. support for the Honduran electoral process is linked to implementation of the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord, the source said.

The accord, however, appeared to be in tatters Friday, as Micheletti swore-in a “national unity” government with himself at its head, while the Honduran Congress has yet to even debate the matter of restoring Zelaya to office for the less than three months left in his term.

DeMint is one of a number of Republican lawmakers who have traveled to Tegucigalpa to show support for the Micheletti regime, which is not recognized by any government and whose agents are blamed for widespread human rights abuses since the coup, including killings and sexual assaults. EFE