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US revokes visas of 4 Honduran officials
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-07-29 15:18

OCOTAL, Nicaragua: The US government said Tuesday it has revoked the diplomatic visas of four Honduran officials, stepping up pressure on coup-installed leaders who insist they can resist international demands to restore the ousted president.

US revokes visas of 4 Honduran officials
Honduras' interim President Roberto Micheletti speaks to reporters inside the Presidential residency in Tegucigalpa July 28, 2009. [Agencies]

The US State Department did not name the four, but a Honduran official said they included the Supreme Court magistrate who ordered the arrest of ousted President Manuel Zelaya and the president of Honduras' Congress.

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The State Department is also reviewing the visas of all officials serving under interim President Roberto Micheletti, department spokesman Ian Kelly said.

Micheletti's Deputy Foreign Minister Marta Lorena Alvarado said Supreme Court Justice Tomas Arita and Congressional President Jose Alfredo Saavedro were among those whose visas removed.

Arita signed the order for Zelaya's arrest several days before soldiers whisked him out of the country on June 28.

Alvarado insisted the decision would not have major consequences for Micheletti's government, which has rejected international demands to restore Zelaya despite the suspension of millions of dollars in US and European development aid and the threat of further sanctions.

"It's part of the international community's incomprehension of what is happening in Honduras," Alvarado told The Associated Press. "It's not definitive and it will not have major consequences for the future of Honduras."

Zelaya, who earlier complained that international efforts to restore him were flagging, said the decision was "correct" and urged even tougher measures.

"We should keep insisting that the United States pressure the coup leaders more to give a clear demonstration of repudiation of the coup," Zelaya said from the Nicaraguan town of Ocotal, where he has parked his government-in-exile near the Honduran border, accompanied by hundreds of supporters.

The US decision came on the one-month anniversary of the coup and at a time when international mediation efforts to reinstate Zelaya are deadlocked. The Honduran Supreme Court and Congress have spent a week mulling over a US-backed agreement that would restore Zelaya and give amnesty to the coup leaders.

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