WASHINGTON AND TEGUCIGALPA, HONDURAS — Honduras' ousted president and the officials who exiled him have agreed to try to resolve their conflict through a U.S.-endorsed mediator, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced Tuesday.
Signaling an expanding U.S. effort, Clinton said the two sides had agreed to talks supervised by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, who was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1987 for his efforts to broker peace accords in Central America.
"We call upon all parties to refrain from acts of violence and to seek a peaceful, constitutional and lasting solution to the serious divisions in Honduras through dialogue," Clinton said at the State Department after meeting with President Manuel Zelaya.
Zelaya said he planned to fly to Costa Rica to begin talks Thursday. Roberto Micheletti, president of the de facto government that has refused to allow Zelaya to reenter Honduras, also said he would travel to Costa Rica for the talks.
The new initiative represents the second diplomatic effort to resolve the dispute, after the failure of an attempt last weekend by an Organization of American States delegation to find a compromise.
The Obama administration had been reluctant to take too active a role in the first days after the late June ouster, preferring instead to give the lead to other OAS members. But both sides have been eager for the United States, which has strong economic and political ties in the impoverished country, to play a bigger part.
The two sides have delegations in Washington this week, bidding for U.S. support. A senior State Department official said U.S. officials had decided "to kick it into high gear."
While U.S. officials have been insisting that they have no top-level contacts with the de facto government, which they do not recognize, Clinton made clear that the administration had been reaching out. She said the U.S. ambassador in Honduras, Hugo Llorens, was "one of the few people who can talk to all sides."
The senior State Department official said the administration took the acceptance of the Arias mediation as a sign that the parties might be ready to talk more seriously about a compromise. Yet their words did not suggest a deal was near.
Zelaya said in a Honduran radio interview that his reinstatement was "nonnegotiable," and that the subject at the talks would be "the exit of the coup leaders."
