Venenzuela, October 30: Rivals in Honduras’ power crisis must reach an accord to ensure international support for presidential election next month, a top US envoy says.
“Without a deal it will be difficult for the inter-American community to support the elections,” Thomas Shannon, the US assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs, told a news conference in Tegucigalpa.
Talks on the crisis, which has polarized and isolated Honduras, are blocked over the return to power of ousted President Manuel Zelaya before the November 29 election.
The de facto government of Roberto Micheletti has sought to push ahead with the election, despite the fact that Zelaya remains holed up in the Brazilian embassy after a making surprise return to the country last month.
Shannon said that Honduras needed to regain foreign support to legitimize the polls and help its battered economy.
Amid clampdowns on civil rights by the coup government, the United Nations and the Organization of American States (OAS) have said that they will not monitor the polls until normalcy is restored.
—–Agencies