Quito, meanwhile, called for a presidential-level meeting of the Rio Group, an organization of 23 Latin American and Caribbean states, without indicating the place or time of such talks.
Zelaya’s removal “violates the most basic norms of democracy and international law,” Ecuador’s foreign ministry said in a statement, calling for the “immediate restoration” of the Honduran president to power.
The Rio Group in turn expressed its “strongest condemnation” over the developments in Honduras, denouncing as “illegitimate” Zelaya’s removal from power.
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega urged his peers to hold emergency talks of the System for Central American Integration, voicing hope to reverse Zelaya’s ouster, which he called “a terrorist act against the institution” of democracy in Latin America. Honduras neighbor, El Salvador, stepped up military presence at its international airport and the border between the two countries to prepare for the possible evacuation of Salvadorans living in Honduras.
Colombia’s foreign ministry expressed “deep dismay over the breakdown of the constitutional order,” adding that it rejected Zelaya’s “removal from power by force.”
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