Hundreds of police and soldiers on Sunday sealed the streets leading to Toncontin Airport, in Honduras capital Tegucigalpa, ahead of the possible arrival of President Manuel Zelaya, who was deposed in a military coup last week.

All road traffic has been halted since the early hours of Sunday, and the only way to reach the airport is on foot.

Zelaya told media on Saturday that he plans to return to the nation alongside regional presidents and a commission from the Organization of American States (OAS) to reclaim the presidency.

Earlier on Sunday, Enrique Ortez Colindrez, the foreign minister for the post-coup government, ordered all airports to prevent the entry of any aircraft carrying Zelaya. American Aillines, Taca and Delta have also suspended flights to Tegucigalpa, although Copa and Continental have operated flights as normal, the nation's civil aviation chief said.

Domestic radio station Radio America said earlier on Sunday that an airplane carrying Zelaya had left U.S. capital Washington and that another craft carrying presidents Argentina's Cristina Fernandez and Paraguay's Fernando Lugo will fly to neighboring El Salvador.

Tegucigalpa has seen panic buying of fuel and food, as anxiety increases about outcome of the nation's constitutional crisis.

Zelaya left the nation on June 28, after hundreds of heavily armed and hooded soldiers broke into the presidential palace, seized him from his bed and forced him aboard a plane to Costa Rica.

Hours later, legislature leader Roberto Micheletti took office as interim president in a legislative session that began with the reading of a letter, denounced as fake by Zelaya, in which Zelaya allegedly resigned on health grounds.

Micheletti said that scheduled general elections will go ahead on Nov. 29 and that he will hand power to a new president on Jan. 27, 2010.

Source: Xinhua