TEGUCIGALPA, June 30 (Reuters) – Ousted President Manuel  Zelaya vowed yesterday to return to Honduras flanked by  foreign leaders to serve the rest of his term, defying a  warning from a hostile interim leadership that he will be  immediately arrested.

Zelaya gathered further international support as he  addressed the United Nations and Organization of American  States. He said the Argentine and Ecuadorean presidents and the  U.N. General Assembly and OAS chiefs would accompany him on a  trip back to Honduras yesterday.

Upping the ante in what is already Central America’s  biggest political crisis in decades, the interim government set  up after Sunday’s military coup said Zelaya would be captured  if he returned.

The coup against Zelaya — a timber magnate toppled in a  dispute over his push to allow presidential re-election beyond  a single four-year term — has been greeted by a tide of  condemnation from U.S. President Barack Obama to Zelaya’s  leftist allies in Latin America. But he remains a divisive  figure in Honduras, an impoverished coffee, textile and  banana-exporter of some 7 million people.

Several thousand demonstrators rallied in favor of his  ouster in the capital Tegucigalpa on Tuesday, after two days of  rowdy anti-Zelaya protests near the presidential palace.

But in a development that could offer an opening for talks  on ending the stand-off, the interim government said it would  send a delegation of politicians, business leaders and lawyers  to Washington on Wednesday for talks on the crisis.

Roberto Micheletti, sworn in as caretaker president by  Congress soon after Sunday’s coup, announced the mission after  Zelaya traveled to New York and Washington to address the  United Nations and Organization of American States yesterday.

U.S. officials said Zelaya would likely meet State  Department officials while in Washington.

Zelaya insisted he will return to complete his mandate,  which ends in early 2010, and said he did not intend to run for  president again.

“I am going back to Honduras on Thursday, I’m going to  return as president,” Zelaya said after the U.N. General  Assembly urged member states to recognize only his government.

In office since 2006, Zelaya had upset conservative elites  with his growing alliance with Venezuelan President Hugo  Chavez, a left-wing firebrand who is championing an old-style  revolutionary brand of socialism across Latin America.

Central America’s first military coup since the Cold War  came after Zelaya angered Congress, courts and the army with a  push for constitutional changes to allow presidential   re-election.

Enrique Ortez, the interim government’s foreign minister,  told CNN’s Spanish-language channel that Zelaya had charges  pending against him for violating the constitution, drug  trafficking and organized crime.

“As soon as he enters he will be captured. We have the  warrants ready so that he stays in jail in Honduras  and is judged according to the country’s laws,” Ortez said.

That set the stage for a potential diplomatic stand-off —  Zelaya said he would be accompanied tomorrow by U.N. General  Assembly head Miguel D’Escoto, OAS chief Jose Miguel Insulza,  Argentine President Cristina Fernandez and Ecuadorean President  Rafael Correa.

Micheletti, who is backed by the country’s business and  political elite and has said he plans to stay on until an  election in November, told Reuters on Monday that the coup had  saved Honduras from swinging to radical socialism.

In Tegucigalpa, anti-Zelaya protesters waving  blue-and-white Honduran flags packed a square to back  Micheletti and protest against the return of a leader they say  wants to follow the socialist model of Venezuela’s Chavez.