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A top US envoy said Wednesday that Honduran elections were key to resolving the crisis set off by the June 28 coup, despite the rejection of the polls by ousted leader Manuel Zelaya.
"The elections are an important part of the solution in order to advance," said US deputy assistant secretary for the Western Hemisphere Craig Kelly, in comments to journalists 11 days before the presidential polls.
Zelaya, who has been holed up in the Brazilian embassy since his surprise return home on September 21, has called on his supporters to boycott the polls after the latest crisis deal failed to return him to office beforehand.
Top regional powers Brazil and Argentina underlined Wednesday that they will not recognize the results if Zelaya is not first restored to power.
Kelly was in Honduras in the latest bid to revive a US-brokered deal to end the crisis, which has thrown the Central American nation into deeper poverty and polarization.
Under the October 30 deal, both sides agreed that Congress would vote on whether to return Zelaya.
But the agreement set no timetable for the 128-member body to vote, and the president of Congress said Tuesday that it would to decide on whether to reinstate Zelaya three days after the November 29 elections.
The US State Department insisted Wednesday that the Congress decision did not undermine the accord.
"Since the accord never actually gave any kind of deadline... scheduling the vote on December 2nd... isn't necessarily inconsistent," spokesman Ian Kelly told journalists.
Kelly said that the democratically-elected president "has to be restored before the end of his term." Zelaya's term expires on January 27.
"We will decide how to -- how to pronounce on the election when we see how it is conducted," Kelly added.
Zelaya, a former rancher who veered to the left after he was elected, criticized the "contradiction" of the US stance in comments from his embassy refuge.
Zelaya has already said the US-backed deal has failed.
Supporters of the de facto regime led by Roberto Micheletti hope the elections will lift the international isolation provoked by the military-backed ouster of Zelaya.
Following a heavy-handed regime crackdown on Zelaya supporters, Amnesty International said Wednesday it would send a delegation to Honduras to investigate rights violations next week.
The Honduran Congress and Supreme Court, business leaders and the military all backed Zelaya's ouster after he pressed for a referendum to change the constitution, which they saw as a bid to stay in office.
