TEGUCIGALPA, (Reuters) – Honduran interim leader  Roberto Micheletti said yesterday ousted president Manuel  Zelaya would not be allowed to return to power under any  conditions but could be granted an amnesty if he comes home  quietly to face justice.

“If he comes peacefully first to appear before the  authorities … I don’t have any problem (with an amnesty for  him),” Micheletti told Reuters in an interview at the  presidential palace in Tegucigalpa in a room guarded by five  heavily armed soldiers.

But the interim president, installed by Honduras’ Congress  after the June 28 military coup that deposed Zelaya, repeated  his position that Zelaya would not be reinstated as president  “under any conditions.”

This signalled Micheletti’s continuing defiance of  international condemnation of the coup and calls from the  Organization of American States, the United States and the  United Nations General Assembly for Zelaya to be restored to  office.

Honduras’ Congress and Supreme Court ordered the army to  remove Zelaya last month, arguing he had violated the country’s  constitution by attempting to lift presidential term limits.

Zelaya, who has been travelling in the Americas to shore up  his support, also ran afoul of his political base and ruling  elites in the conservative country by allying himself with  Venezuela’s firebrand leftist president, Hugo Chavez.

Micheletti blamed Chavez for the political crisis.

“Chavez is the great damage that democracy in Honduras has  suffered. We hold him responsible for any incident or any  invasion that might come against Honduras from any country,” he  said.

Micheletti’s interim government is holding talks with  Zelaya’s representatives under the auspices of Costa Rican  President Oscar Arias. The meetings have resulted in little  apparent progress, aside from an agreement to keep talking.

Micheletti said Arias was due to call his negotiating team  in the next 8-10 days to organize the next round of talks and  that he was very satisfied with Arias’ impartiality.