MEXICO CITY — Representatives of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya and the de facto government that replaced him in a coup returned to negotiations Monday, but the two sides remained deadlocked over whether to return Zelaya to power.
Both delegations had suggested Monday as a deadline for resolving the dispute, or calling off talks altogether.
De facto President Roberto Micheletti abruptly announced Friday that the Supreme Court was the body that should decide whether to reinstate Zelaya.
The head of Zelaya's team, Victor Meza, called the proposal "absurd" and countered that the Congress should make the decision, arguing that returning Zelaya to office was a political matter, not a judicial one.
The Supreme Court has endorsed the coup, and Zelaya's supporters do not trust it to be an impartial arbiter. The Congress also signed off on the coup and voted Micheletti into office, but Zelaya may believe there is more room for political jockeying among legislators.
Micheletti's representatives favor deferring to the court because they want Zelaya to be brought to trial immediately on various charges, including abuse of power.
The two sides have agreed on all other points in a plan drafted in July by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, including a decision to forgo amnesty for people involved in the coup and the events leading up to it. But the final point, Zelaya's reinstatement, appears to be the deal-breaker.
"There may be some agreement, but if even 5% is missing, then you might as well have nothing," Juan Barahona, a union leader and ardent supporter of Zelaya, told reporters in the capital, Tegucigalpa.
Washington and Latin American nations are demanding that Zelaya be allowed to finish his term, which ends in January, and have warned that the presidential election scheduled for Nov. 29 would not be recognized if the crisis is not resolved. Despite the United States' traditional influence in Honduras, the de facto government has not relented.
"We had great hopes [last week], but it seems things have bogged down again," Enrique V. Iglesias, a veteran regional diplomat and head of the Ibero-American General Secretariat, told reporters in Mexico City on Monday. "I am very worried the way solutions keep getting delayed."
