MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Mexico recognizes Honduras; OAS could re-consider the issue mid August

OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Isulza

Mexico announced this weekend that it was normalizing diplomatic relations with Honduras given the “significant advances” achieved in addressing the consequences of last year’s coup.

The Mexican Foreign Affairs ministry said it had instructed its ambassador to return to Tegucigalpa “and resume diplomatic relations in the first days of the coming (this) week”.

The Mexican decision follows the report from the Organization of American States, OAS, High Level Commission (CAN), which was specially named to address and analyze the Honduran situation.

The CAN report “reflects significant advances by the government and other participants of Honduras political activities in addressing the problems derived from the coup which took place 28 June 2009, and denotes a positive attitude both from President Porfirio Lobo and former president Jose Manuel Zelaya”.

Mexico made the announcement a day after Chile decided something similar: to recognize the new Honduran government and ordered the return of its ambassador to Tegucigalpa based on the same CAN report.

Meantime in Washington OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza said he was optimistic about the return of Honduras to the inter-American system anticipating that in the coming weeks member countries would be making a decision on the issue.

Insulza said the CAN report was “positive” and “balanced”, but also admitted there was not an immediate consensus regarding the lifting of Honduras suspension from OAS.

“Certainly regarding expectations many of us believed in a concrete recommendation on whether Honduras should or should not return to OAS and that recommendation did not appear because there’s still insufficient consensus”, said Insulza.

The chancellors from OAS member countries will study the CAN report and arrive to their own conclusions and “I expect that sometime in mid month we could get together to talk about more positions from the different countries”.

Insulza said the CAN report gives abundant evidence that President Lobo has propelled “important changes” and is “advancing in the correct direction”.

But the report recommends among other issue that the Lobo administration puts an end to the trials started against ousted president Zelaya and his closest members by the de facto regime.

Last June the OAS General Assembly decided to name the high level commission, CAN, which was made up of Argentina, Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, United States, Guatemala, México, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru and Dominican Republic to study the Honduran case.

The OAS Democratic Charter demands the favourable vote of two thirds of its members to lift the suspension. Honduras says it counts with 24 votes, the minimum needed to return to OAS.