Honduras reverses decision to scrap extradition treaty with US

Honduras has agreed with President Donald Trump's administration to keep an extradition treaty that has been used to hand suspected drug traffickers over to the United States, President Xiomara Castro announced Tuesday.

The agreement will continue "with the necessary safeguards," she wrote on social media platform X, reversing course just 10 days before it was set to expire as part of a diplomatic row.

"I've ensured respect for the integrity of the armed forces," Castro added.

The Central American nation had said in August that it was scrapping the treaty, denouncing US "interference" and alleging a plot against her government and military leaders.

Castro said at the time she feared the agreement would be used to stage a "coup."

The surprise decision came after the US ambassador, Laura Dogu, criticized a meeting of senior Honduran officials with Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez, who is accused by Washington of facilitating drug trafficking.

The opposition has alleged Castro ended the extradition treaty and invented conspiracies to protect members of her government and family.

Her husband Manuel Zelaya, president from 2006 to 2009, was overthrown in a military coup supported by business elites and the political right.

The extradition agreement is considered a key tool to dismantle the "narco-state" that, according to US authorities, was built in Honduras when Juan Orlando Hernandez was president from 2014 to 2022.

Around 50 Hondurans accused of drug trafficking have been extradited to the United States over the past decade, including ex-president Hernandez, who was sentenced last June in New York to 45 years in prison.