The international community’s chief mediator in the Honduran political crisis said on Monday he would meet the country’s presidential candidates to emphasize that upcoming elections would not be recognized if held under the government installed by a coup.
Costa Rican President Oscar Arias said he would meet at least four of the six candidates today, including the top two contenders, in an effort to gain their support for restoring ousted president Manuel Zelaya before the Nov. 29 ballot.
Arias, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who has been leading US-backed efforts to restore Zelaya, said he would make clear that the world would not recognize the outcome of the election unless Zelaya is reinstated before then.
“The idea is to speak with them frankly,” Arias said at a news conference in Costa Rica’s capital, San Jose, where the meeting will take place. “What good is there for a presidential hopeful in Honduras to win the elections if his future government will not be recognized by the international community and the sanctions will continue or even increase?” Arias asked.
Arias said he hoped to persuade the candidates to back a compromise that he proposed weeks ago, which would return Zelaya to the presidency with limited powers until his constitutional term ends in January.
Interim President Roberto Micheletti has rejected the plan despite mounting international pressure since soldiers forced Zelaya into exile on June 28 in a dispute over the ousted leader’s efforts to change the Constitution of Honduras.
The US and many Latin American countries have warned they will not recognize the November election unless Zelaya is put back in office. Arias spoke after meeting with Craig Kelly, the No. 2 official at the US State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs.
Kelly said he supported the meeting with the presidential candidates and reiterated the US view that the “best way to achieve international recognition for the elections” was for Honduras to accept Arias’ proposed compromise.
On Monday, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico refused to accept the participation of the Honduran ambassador at a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva because he is not from Zelaya’s government.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in
REGIONAL TENSIONS: China boosted spending on its military for the 29th straight year, raising it by 6% to US$296bn, while Taiwan spent US$16.6bn, an 11% increase Global military expenditure recorded its steepest increase in over a decade last year, reaching an all-time high of US$2.4 trillion as wars and rising tensions fueled spending across the world, researchers said yesterday. Military spending rose across the globe with particularly large increases in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, according to a new report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). “Total military spending is at an all-time high ... and for the first time since 2009, we saw spending increase across all five geographical regions,” SIPRI senior researcher Nan Tian said. Military spending rose by 6.8 percent last year, the