By Simon Gardner
TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - Honduras' ousted President Manuel Zelaya called on the United States on Tuesday to impose tough new sanctions against the de facto government that toppled him in a coup last month.
Zelaya said he wrote to U.S. President Barack Obama to request that he step up the pressure against Honduras' coup leaders.
Obama's administration has condemned the coup, cut $16.5 million in military aid and threatened to slash economic aid, but Zelaya said more was needed.
"All this has been insufficient," he said from exile in neighbouring Nicaragua, urging new measures against the individuals who ordered and carried out the June 28 coup, and have joined the interim government.
With negotiations deadlocked and Zelaya vowing to return to Honduras within days, some fear Central America's worst crisis since the end of the Cold War could flare into violence.
Talks mediated by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias collapsed over the weekend but he asked both sides to give him until Wednesday to find a breakthrough.
Zelaya said he would give Arias the 72 hours he had requested but that, if no deal was reached, he would then return to Honduras despite the de facto government's threats that it would immediately arrest him.
(Additional reporting by Ivan Castro in Managua; Editing by Kieran Murray)
