**Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says ousted Honduran leader Manuel Zelaya is to return home “in the coming hours”.**Mr Chavez was speaking after talks in Bolivia with other left-wing Latin American leaders supporting Mr Zelaya.
The deposed Honduran leader is in Nicaragua. On Thursday he said he was said he was preparing to come home by air, land or other routes.
The interim government, which has vowed to arrest him if he returns, prevented his attempted homecoming on 5 July.
On Friday Mr Chavez said: “Zelaya is going back to Honduras. Let’s see what the [coup leaders] will do.”
He was speaking in La Paz, following talks with Bolivian President Evo Morales, Ecuador’s Rafael Correa and Paraguay’s Fernando Lugo.
‘Final battle’
Mr Zelaya told Venezuelan television on Thursday that he was getting ready to return to his country from neighbouring Nicaragua.
“I am preparing various alternatives: by air, by land, and others,” he told Venezuelan television.
The foreign minister in the deposed government, Patricia Rodas, said Mr Zelaya was returning to wage a “final battle” against those who ousted him.
Interim Honduran President Roberto Micheletti took over at the head of a military-backed government after Mr Zelaya was bundled out of the country on 28 June.
Mr Zelaya was forced out amid a dispute with the country’s Congress and the courts over his plans to hold a non-binding public consultation to ask people whether they supported moves to change the constitution.
Mr Zelaya’s critics said the move was aimed at removing the current one-term limit on serving as president, so paving the way for his possible re-election.
The chief mediator in the crisis, Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, has called the rival factions to a new round of talks on Saturday.