Argentina granted diplomatic asylum to Enrique Flores Lanza, Cabinet Chief of the deposed presidency of the Honduran president Manuel Zelaya, said Foreign Ministry sources.

Jorge Taiana, the Argentine Foreign Minister, decided to give Flores Lanza asylum in Argentina.

"Flores Lanza is now officially in the Argentine embassy and already talked about his situation with the Argentine foreign minister, who remains in Washington, where he chairs the Foreign Minister's Assembly convened by the OAS Permanent Council," said Ministry of Foreign Affairs sources.

Previously, Taiana said that on Saturday the Organization of American States (OAS), which groups most of the countries in the Western Hemisphere including the United States, will decide if it suspends Honduras from the body if current Honduran authorities do not agree to restore the ousted President Manuel Zelaya.

The OAS planned a mission to Honduras to seek the restoration of ousted President Manuel Zelaya as interim leaders tried to shore up support for the coup against him.

OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza said in Guyana he will travel to Honduras tomorrow with staff members to talk with the caretaker government there.

The Honduran administration has so far rebuffed any attempts to bring back Zelaya, who was ousted in a military coup last Sunday in a dispute over presidential term limits. But the OAS visit could represent the first chance of a negotiated settlement to the biggest political crisis in Central America in 20 years.

Honduran coup backers, headed by interim leader Roberto Micheletti, argue that Zelaya's ouster was legal as it was ordered by the Supreme Court after the president had tried to extend his four-year term in office illegally.

State TV showed images of a march by several thousand anti-Zelaya protesters, many wearing the national colours of blue and white, who took to the streets in the main industrial city of San Pedro Sula.
The broadcaster ignored a pro-Zelaya protest of roughly the same size in the capital, Tegucigalpa.

"OAS: We want democracy, not Chavez," one banner read at the rally against Zelaya, who was unpopular with many in Honduras, particularly the country's wealthier conservative elite, for his alliance with Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez.

• US press: 'Honduras coup strangely democratic'