Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) — Honduras’s deposed President Manuel Zelaya breathed new life into his efforts to regain office by slipping into the country and taking shelter in the Brazilian Embassy, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said. Clinton, speaking in New York after meeting with Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, who has mediated the Honduran political crisis, said Zelaya’s return to the capital, Tegucigalpa, created the chance to restore “constitutional and democratic order” and move ahead with elections in November. Zelaya’s homecoming “makes it easier for us to put some more pressure on the de facto government,” Arias said last night in New York, adding achieving his return was the main hurdle to implementing the so-called San Jose 11-point plan. Even as Clinton and Arias called for dialogue, the deposed president’s presence in the city is likely to move the conflict into the streets, said Brookings Institute analyst Kevin Casas- Zamora. Arias’s role as mediator is “finished,” Acting President Roberto Micheletti said late yesterday, Agence France- Presse reported. “Mr. Arias has absolutely nothing to do with this conflict any longer,” AFP cited Micheletti as saying in Tegucigalpa.

I resent hearing this via Hillary Clinton, who represents an administration that has made matters worse, at least publicly.