Honduras rulers defy world pressure to restore Zelaya

By Patrick Markey

TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - The Honduran interim government defied international pressure on Wednesday and vowed there was "no chance at all" of ousted President Manuel Zelaya returning to office.

World leaders from President Barack Obama to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez have told the new rulers of the Central American country to restore Zelaya, a leftist who was toppled by the army on Sunday and sent into exile after a dispute over presidential term limits.

The Organization of American States gave Honduras an ultimatum early on Wednesday to allow Zelaya back into office by this weekend or face suspension.

But the interim government's response indicated there was little immediate hope of a negotiated solution to the crisis in Honduras, an impoverished coffee and textile producer.

Enrique Ortez, interim foreign minister, said Zelaya would be arrested if he came home, and said the interim authorities were sure that Zelaya had been removed in a legal process.

"We are not negotiating national sovereignty or the presidency," he told Reuters in an interview. "There is no chance at all," of Zelaya coming back to power.[nN01401959]

The crisis in Honduras has spiraled into the worst political turmoil in Central America since the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989, posing a test both for regional diplomacy and for Obama's ability to improve the United States' battered standing in Latin America.

In further signs of isolation of the interim government, the Inter-American Development Bank said it was pausing all new loans to Honduras until democracy is restored, while Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said Europe will not talk to the new rulers if they attempt to get in touch.

"(The interim government) is going to try, but it's better they don't try, because they will not get an answer from us and moreover the instruction that embassies from European Union countries have is to not attend any event, make contact, have any communication with the provisional authorities, that that is our position," he told Spanish state radio.

But a spokesman for the Swedish government said EU states had not reached a common position on what diplomats would do.

The United States will wait until at least July 6 to decide whether to cut off aid to Honduras, a senior Obama administration official said.

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Zelaya, who took office in 2006 and had been due to leave power in 2010, was forced out over his push to extend presidential mandates beyond a single term.

He had become a divisive figure in Honduras, a coffee, textile and banana-exporter of 7 million people, especially after he allied himself with Chavez, a firebrand socialist who has sought to build regional leftist solidarity as a counter to U.S. influence.

Public support for Zelaya, a wealthy businessman, had dropped as low as 30 percent in recent months, with many Hondurans uncomfortable over his tilt to the left in a country with a longtime conservative, pro-Washington position.