MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Retrurn of Honduras to OAS, is “only a matter of time”

Arturo Valenzuela is optimistic about re-integration

United States Under-secretary of State for Hemisphere Affairs, Arturo Valenzuela, said Honduras' re-incorporation to the Organization of American States (OAS) “is progressing” and that it is only “a matter of time.”

During a conference call, Valenzuela said that “it's not true that there is a firm position in the region that is unfavourable to Honduras' re-insertion to the OAS,” but that there exists a “process of accompaniment” on behalf of many countries in order to study how Tegucigalpa could return to the inter-American organism, he explained.

This, he added, was discussed during the XL OAS General Assembly, which was celebrated in June in Lima, Peru, and where Foreign Affairs Ministers instructed the Secretary General, José Miguel Insulza, on the creation of a high level commission that studies the conditions which would allow Honduras to return to the inter-American system, from which it was suspended on July 4, 2009, due to the coup d'état that overthrew president Manuel Zelaya.

Valenzuela's impression is that, after the resumption of loans to Honduras on behalf of the multilateral organisms, such as the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), “the majority of countries are in favour of supporting the measures” of Honduran President Porfirio Lobo, and they are trying to normalize relations.

Due to this, the re-integration of Honduras to the OAS “is progressing,” and for it to become a reality, it is only “a matter of time,” he said.

Valenzuela also said that José Miguel Insulza, OAS Secretary General, met over the weekend with both Lobo and Zelaya, something the very organism had not wanted to confirm nor deny, for alleged privacy reasons.

OAS sources affirmed that in this phase, the steps taken by the organism need to be carried out with certain tranquillity and without external interferences that might provoke distortions in the dialogue.

What they did assure was that the high level commission is at work, which is made up by Peru, Ecuador, United States, Canada, Mexico and Jamaica.