Negotiators for interim President Roberto Micheletti said talks would go on even though he spurned a proposal to allow legislators to vote on whether Zelaya could return to power. Micheletti offered a counterproposal calling for the Supreme Court to decide the matter, an idea immediately rejected by Zelaya.
"I had said that Micheletti was preparing to slap the Honduran people and the international community, and now he has done that," Zelaya told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from the Brazilian Embassy, where he took refuge after sneaking back into Honduras on Sept. 21 from his forced exile.
In a statement released later, Zelaya urged Western Hemisphere countries to step up economic sanctions "against the de facto regime." The United States and other countries have already suspended development aid to the impoverished Central American country.
Although Congress voted to back Zelaya's ouster, lawmakers have since said they would support any agreement that emerged from talks.
There has been no such assurance from the Supreme Court, which ordered Zelaya's arrest days before the June 28 coup after he pushed ahead with plans to hold a referendum on changing the constitution despite the court ruling the vote illegal. Instead of arresting him, soldiers flew Zelaya into exile at gunpoint.
Zelaya's foreign minister, Patricia Rodas, told Latin American leaders meeting in Bolivia that the talks had collapsed because of Micheletti's refusal to accept Zelaya's return to power. "The intransigence of the dictatorship led to the failure," she said.
However, Zelaya said he would give negotiators until Monday to break the impasse.
