WRAPUP 2-U.S. insists it wants Zelaya's return to Honduras

(For full coverage of Honduras, click on [nN28343997])

* U.S. reiterates support for Zelaya's return

* U.S. backs mediator Arias' proposal

* Zelaya waits in Nicaragua, questions U.S. support

* Micheletti tries to persuade world it was not a coup

By Claudia Parsons

TEGUCIGALPA, July 27 (Reuters) - The United States insisted
on Monday it wants Honduras' ousted President Manuel Zelaya
returned to power but gave no commitment to tightening
sanctions to force the de facto government to back down.

Zelaya, an ally of Venezuela's socialist President Hugo
Chavez, has complained that Washington was wavering and has not
done enough to win his reinstatement.

The U.S. government said it had not changed its position.

"Our policy remains the same, that we want the restoration
of democratic order and that includes the return by mutual
agreement of the democratically elected president, and that's
President Zelaya," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said in
Washington.

President Barack Obama has condemned the coup, cut military
aid to Honduras and thrown his support behind the mediation
efforts of Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, whose proposals
include Zelaya's reinstatement.

The de facto government has refused to let Zelaya back in
and says it will arrest him if he does. The leftist complains
that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has stopped using
the term "coup" to describe his removal from power on June 28.

"The position of Secretary Clinton at the beginning was
firm. Now I feel that she's not really denouncing (it) and
she's not acting firmly against the repression that Honduras is
suffering," Zelaya told reporters over the weekend.

Asked if the United States would impose new sanctions on
the de facto government in Honduras, Kelly said it wanted to
give Arias more time to seek a negotiated solution.

"We're content to let that process play out, we're not
going to put any artificial deadline on that," he told
reporters.

Zelaya, who was ousted as he sought a referendum vote to
change the constitution, is in exile in neighboring Nicaragua.

He went to the border and took a few symbolic steps on
Honduran soil last Friday, a gesture criticized by Clinton as
"reckless."

No foreign country has recognized the de facto government
but interim President Roberto Micheletti has so far refused to
back down.

MICHELETTI SEEKS SUPPORT

Seeking to win over his critics and perhaps avert harsher
U.S. sanctions, Micheletti wrote an article in the Wall Street
Journal on Monday arguing Zelaya's removal was legal because he
was seeking to extend presidential term limits.

"The truth is that he was removed by a democratically
elected civilian government because the independent judicial
and legislative branches of our government found that he had
violated our laws and constitution," said Micheletti, chosen by
Congress to lead the country hours after Zelaya was ousted.

Around 2,000 Zelaya supporters gathered on a major exit
route from the capital Tegucigalpa to block the road in protest
on Monday as Congress was due to examine and debate Arias'
proposals. It was expected to reject the plan because it
includes Zelaya's return as president.

Zelaya was seized before dawn by soldiers and flown out of
the country. The Supreme Court ordered his arrest and Congress
backed his removal, appointing Micheletti as president.

Micheletti said he understood criticism of the abrupt way
that Zelaya was ousted, saying: "Reasonable people can believe
the situation could have been handled differently."

"But it is also necessary to understand the decision in the
context of genuine fear of Mr. Zelaya's proven willingness to
violate the law and to engage in mob-led violence."
(Additional reporting by Marco Aquino, Esteban Israel,
Gustavo Palencia and Claudia Parsons in Honduras, Ivan Castro
in Nicaragua, Tim Gaynor in Washington; writing by Claudia
Parsons; editing by Kieran Murray)