Diplomatic test over Honduras crisis

By Emilio San Pedro
BBC News, Miami

The two sides occupy so far entrenched positions

Costa Rican President Oscar Arias is no stranger to diplomacy.

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for his role in helping to end the military conflicts and civil wars that plagued Central America for decades and claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people.

Mr Arias's latest challenge is to host two days of talks on ways of ending the political crisis in Honduras.

He is bringing together the interim Honduran leader Roberto Micheletti and the deposed president, Manuel Zelaya, who was removed from office for allegedly violating the constitution.

Given the depth of disagreement and how entrenched both sides are in their respective positions, Mr Arias will need to have his negotiating batteries fully recharged for the first encounter between the two men since the 28 June coup.

Upon arriving in San Jose, Mr Zelaya - who has the full backing of the international community and the Obama administration - said he would be demanding his immediate restoration to power and the removal from office of the interim government within a 24-hour period.

Mr Micheletti, a member of the deposed president's Liberal Party, played a key role in Mr Zelaya's removal from office.

He is travelling to San Jose with a commission of five other interim government representatives.

Mr Micheletti has said his aim is to participate in a dialogue but that under no circumstances will he agree to the return of Mr Zelaya to power.

He has said on various occasions that if the deposed leader were allowed to return it would be only to face a trial for his alleged violation of the country's constitution.

Fears

Mr Zelaya enjoys a great deal of support within Latin America and further afield, as the coup has generated widespread condemnation.

You can call it a negotiation or simply a talk, a conversation, a dialogue but I want the two parties to sit around a table and discuss the issues Oscar Arias Costa Rican president Profile: Oscar Arias

President Barack Obama has been more than direct in his assertions that Manuel Zelaya must return to power to serve out his term in office, a move he has described as the only possible way forward.

Internally, however, is where the problems begin for the deposed president.

The fear among those in the country's political and economic class over his political shift to the left and his increasingly closer ties with the left-wing Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, is what helped coalesce support for his removal from office.

Shortly after the coup, Mr Zelaya told reporters at the UN that if he were restored to power he would be content with sitting out the remainder of his term - without renewing his push for a constitutional reform that prompted his removal from office last week - and retire to his farm away from the political maelstrom.

A signed document to that effect could potentially be one of the key components for the Costa Rican president to help find a way out of the political crisis in Honduras.

Whatever the case, it is clear that Oscar Arias - regardless of his past achievements in bringing divergent political sides together - faces a difficult and some would argue nearly insurmountable task.