By Patrick Markey
TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - Defying a coup and bolstered by international support, ousted President Manuel Zelaya said he will return to Honduras on Thursday to serve out the rest of his term, accompanied by the leaders of Argentina and Ecuador and the Organisation of American States chief.
Zelaya told a news conference at the United Nations on Tuesday he only intends to serve out the rest of his term, which ends in early 2010, and would not run for president ever again.
But the interim government set up after the army bundled Zelaya out of the Central American country on Sunday said it would arrest him if he went back.
Enrique Ortez, caretaker foreign minister, told CNN's Spanish-language channel that Zelaya had charges pending against him for violating the constitution, drug trafficking and organized crime.
In the biggest political crisis to rock Central America in decades, left-wing Zelaya was flown into exile in Costa Rica by the military in a dispute over presidential term limits.
The coup in the impoverished coffee-producing country of 7 million -- the first in Central America since the Cold War -- was greeted by a tide of condemnation, from U.S. President Barack Obama to Zelaya's leftist allies in Latin America, led by Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.
Zelaya had riled the armed forces, courts and Congress with his quest to change the constitution to let presidents seek re-election beyond a single four-year term. He also upset conservative elites with his growing alliance with Chavez.
His plan to return gained backing from the region.
Zelaya said OAS chief Jose Miguel Insulza, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez and Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa would accompany him back on Thursday.
"The idea is to create a diplomatic shield," an Argentine government source said.
But Ortez said, "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."
ANTI-ZELAYA PROTESTERS
In the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, several thousand anti-Zelaya protesters waving blue-and-white Honduran flags packed in a square to back the interim government and to protest against the return of a leader they say wants to follow Chavez's socialist model.
Pro-Zelaya protesters have clashed in the streets with security forces, but the capital was generally calm on Tuesday with traffic clogging streets and many stores, cafes and shops open for business.
Coffee producers told Reuters that protesters had blocked parts of three major highways in the interior of the country.
But the country's coffee institute said that exports had not been affected by the coup.
Honduras' Congress named Roberto Micheletti, a conservative veteran of Zelaya's Liberal Party as caretaker president soon after Zelaya was pushed out.
GROWING SUPPORT
But Zelaya's international support grew on Tuesday.
The U.N. General Assembly called on its 192 member states to recognise only Zelaya's government. In a resolution passed by consensus it condemned what it called a coup d'etat and demanded "the immediate and unconditional restoration of the legitimate and constitutional government" of Zelaya.
Zelaya told the assembly he had only tried to improve the lot of his country's poor but had been treated harshly by the Honduran army and business elite that has run the country for decades.
"No-one has put me on trial. No-one has called me to a court to defend myself, no-one has told me what the crime is," he said.
Obama said on Monday the coup was illegal and the White House said on Tuesday Zelaya is likely to meet U.S. State Department officials when he makes an expected visit to Washington for an OAS meeting later on Tuesday.
Further putting pressure on the interim government, the World Bank has "paused" all program lending to Honduras following the coup, the bank's president, Robert Zoellick, said on Tuesday.
"We're working closely with the OAS and looking to the OAS to deal with its handling of the crisis under its democratic charter," Zoellick told reporters in Washington. "In the process we have put a pause with our lending."
(Additional reporting by Enrique Andres Pretel, Mica Rosenberg, Gustavo Palencia in Tegucigalpa and Guido Nejamkis in Buenos Aires, Walter Brandimarte and Patrick Worsnip at the United Nations, Writing by Catherine Bremer, Editing by Frances Kerry)