Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was due to meet U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday just over a week after he was toppled in a coup that has pushed the Central American state into international isolation.

The high-profile meeting with Washington’s top diplomat will shore up support for Zelaya after troops foiled his attempt to fly back into Honduras on Sunday and clashed with his followers in the capital city. At least one person was killed.

The talks with Clinton in Washington will also signal that President Barack Obama’s administration wants to give clear support to Zelaya.

The United States has already condemned the June 28 coup in the impoverished coffee and textile exporting country and is urging dialogue to achieve a peaceful constitutional solution to the crisis.

Defying international pressure to reinstate Zelaya, caretaker President Roberto Micheletti, appointed by Honduran lawmakers after the coup, has insisted the ousted leader was legally removed and should be arrested if he returns to Honduras.

Zelaya, a timber magnate who irked opponents by shifting to the political left after his 2006 election, was forced out at gunpoint last week and flown into exile by the military in Central America’s first coup since the Cold War.

“This is the responsibility of the powerful countries too, especially the United States, which has a lot of force … and should take measures,” Zelaya told Telesur regional network.

Speaking in the Nicaraguan capital Managua, he said statements from Obama and his administration so far had been “firm” in favor of his return to office.

His ouster sparked widespread international condemnation, from the White House to his Latin American leftist allies, and is a test of regional diplomacy for the Obama administration as it tries to mend Washington’s battered image in the hemisphere.

The Organization of American States late on Saturday took the rare step of suspending Honduras — only the second country after Cuba to be barred — for its refusal to reinstate Zelaya.

INTERIM GOVERNMENT MAINTAINS STANCE

Honduras’ interim government insists Zelaya’s removal was a constitutional transition carried out by the army and supported by the Supreme Court. It argues Zelaya had illegally tried to organize a vote on changing presidential term limits.

“I am confident Secretary Clinton will recognize the rule of law is the reason we are here and that Mr. Zelaya should account for his unconstitutional position,” Micheletti said in a national broadcast on Monday.

A commission of Honduran private sector representatives flew to Washington on Monday to seek guarantees on trade and make the case for the interim government, which cannot officially hold talks with the U.S. administration.

Zelaya had upset the country’s traditional ruling elites, including members of his own Liberal Party, by seeking changes to the presidential term limits and by establishing closer ties with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a fierce critic of Washington.

The OAS suspension will complicate Honduras’ access to multilateral loans. Washington has held back from issuing a legal definition of the ouster as a coup — such a definition would force a cutoff of U.S. aid to the country, the third poorest in the hemisphere after Haiti and Nicaragua.

The State Department has requested $68.2 million in aid for Honduras for the fiscal year 2010, more than the $43.2 million in the current year, covering development aid, funds for U.S. arms as well as military training and counter narcotics aid.

(Additional reporting by Frank Jack Daniel in Caracas; editing by Pascal Fletcher and Mohammad Zargham) – Reuters

Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara died on Monday aged 93. He will be remembered most as the leading architect of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War.

“His age just caught up with him,” his wife Diana told Reuters. “He was not ill. He died peacefully in his sleep.”

McNamara also forged brilliant careers in industry and international finance, but his painful legacy remains Vietnam.

More than anyone else except possibly President Lyndon Johnson, McNamara became to anti-war critics the symbol of a failed policy that left more than 58,000 U.S. troops dead and the nation bogged down in a seemingly endless disaster in Southeast Asia.

Pundits came to call the conflict “McNamara’s War.”

With his slicked-back hair and rimless glasses, he became a familiar face to the nation as one of “the best and the brightest” assembled by President John Kennedy to form his policy-making brain trust.

But he left the Cabinet in 1968 under pressure from Johnson. By then disillusioned with the war, McNamara had criticized U.S. bombing of North Vietnam.

He spent the rest of his life trying to explain the U.S. role in Vietnam and apologizing for his mistakes, becoming the subject of an Academy Award winning documentary, “The Fog of War.” In the film, he discussed the difficult decision-making process during the Vietnam conflict as well as his Pentagon role in the Cuban missile crisis.

He first came to prominence as one of the “Whiz Kids” who revitalized Ford Motor Co. after World War Two and ended his public career as president of the World Bank.

To those jobs, as well as defense secretary, the dynamic McNamara brought a driving ambition, a phenomenal memory for statistics and a quick, efficient grasp of facts.

McNamara was named defense secretary by Kennedy in 1961 and held the post longer than anyone before or since. He put his corporate organizational skills to use in trying to modernize the Pentagon during the Cold War.

BLOCKING COMMUNISM

But more and more, Vietnam became his focus. He made several fact-finding visits there in the early days of the U.S. military buildup, which Washington saw as the only way to block a communist takeover of Southeast Asia.

Theodore White, in his book “The Making of the President 1968,” said McNamara argued behind the scenes that the United States must not slip quietly into the war — that the decision must be brought before Congress and the issue debated openly.

But Kennedy authorized a small-scale increase in troop strength and, after his assassination in 1963, Johnson bowed to pressure from his generals and began a major buildup that finally had more than 500,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam.

McNamara, convinced the war could be ended by Christmas 1965, threw his energies into effective execution of Johnson’s policies but miscalculated resistance to U.S. intervention both in Vietnam and at home.

In late 1967 he criticized the decision to bomb North Vietnam in retaliation for strikes on U.S. bases in the south. Johnson decided to remove him the following year, offering him the presidency of the World Bank.

In 1971, the classified and highly sensitive Pentagon Papers, an official record of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, were leaked to The New York Times.

In “McNamara: His Ordeal in the Pentagon,” Henry Trewhitt wrote that McNamara ordered the study to provide material that might help future generations avoid the mistakes made in Vietnam by intelligent, well-intentioned men like himself.

“When its contents broke in the press, however, his pleasure at seeing the record clarified was badly diminished by his shock that the two administrations (Kennedy and Johnson) had been deceitful about escalating the war,” Trewhitt wrote.

McNamara was quoted as saying: “My God, does anyone think I would have commissioned this if reasonable men could conclude that it shows me to be a liar?”

FIGHTING POVERTY

At the World Bank, McNamara conducted a crusade against poverty and directed an expansion of World Bank influence.

When he took over the independent United Nations affiliate in 1968, the bank was making only $1 billion in annual loan commitments to Third World nations. For the fiscal year ending June 30, 1981, his last day in office, it lent $11.5 billion.

McNamara shifted the emphasis of the bank’s lending from heavy industry to basics like farming and population control.

Robert Strange McNamara was born in San Francisco on June 9, 1916, to Robert James McNamara, a wholesale shoe salesman, and the former Clara Nell Strange, both of British ancestry.

A brilliant student, he graduated from the University of California in 1937 and earned a masters degree from Harvard Business School, where he joined the faculty in 1940.

While employed at the Pentagon in 1946, he and nine colleagues sent a prospectus to 20 firms, offering themselves as a “package deal” to any company needing managers.

Ford, then in financial trouble, accepted the 10, all statistics experts nicknamed “the Whiz Kids.” McNamara rose to the presidency of Ford by 1960.

On taking early retirement from the World Bank in 1981, McNamara kept an office in Washington where he joined dozens of corporate boards, including the Washington Post. He was also a member of the Trilateral Commission which promoted cooperation between Europe, Japan and the United States.

McNamara married Margaret Craig, a fellow student at the University of California, who died of cancer just before he left the World Bank. They had a son and a daughter.

And in 2004, at age 88, he married his Italian-born sweetheart, Diana Masieri Byfield in Assisi, Italy. – Reuters

Visiting U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday praised Russia’s most powerful politician, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, as the two leaders met for the first time, saying there was an excellent opportunity to improve U.S.-Russia relations.

Visibly awkward, the two men exchanged pleasantries at the start of a meeting at Putin’s forest residence outside Moscow overshadowed by Obama’s criticism of Putin last week in a pre-trip interview as a man with one foot stuck in the past.

“I am aware of not only the extraordinary work that you’ve done on behalf of the Russian people in your previous role as prime minis-, uh, as president, but in your current role as prime minister,” Obama said.

Putin, looking down and mostly avoiding eye contact with Obama, said there had been periods of greyish mood and confrontation in U.S.-Russia relations but added:

“We link hopes for development of our relationship with your name.”

Obama’s meeting with Putin, a former KGB spy who served as president from 2000-2008 before handing over the top Kremlin job to his hand-picked successor Dmitry Medvedev, follows talks on Monday with Medvedev.

They produced agreements on a target for cuts in nuclear arms, a deal to let U.S. troops fly across Russia to fight in Afghanistan and the establishment of a joint governmental commission to improve relations between the two former Cold War superpowers.

On the second day of his visit to Russia, Obama was also due to deliver a major speech on democracy, the global economy and the U.S.-Russian relationship to students at Moscow’s New Economic School.

Russian media, which mostly take their cue from the Kremlin, stuck to a low-key factual account of the U.S. leader’s visit on Tuesday, avoiding any kind of “Obamamania” and concentrating on the agreements reached.

Opinion polls show that most Russians distrust the United States and are not yet convinced by Obama.

Business leaders traveling with Obama want to use the visit to boost trade and investment. Russian trade with the United States was just $36 billion in 2008, the same amount as with Poland, and investment has lagged that of European competitors.

Obama and Medvedev will attend a summit of Russian and U.S. business leaders later on Tuesday.

When asked about the center of power in Russia on Monday, Obama stuck to a diplomatic script on Medvedev and Putin, who stayed on as prime minister after anointing Medvedev and is the man who holds most political clout in Russia.

“My interest is in dealing directly with my counterpart, the President (Medvedev), but also to reach out to Prime Minister Putin and all other influential sectors in Russian society,” Obama told reporters.

ACCORD ON NUCLEAR ARMS

At a cordial news conference in the Kremlin’s vast, gilded St Andrew’s Hall on Monday, Obama and Medvedev spoke of their resolve to put differences behind them and focus on cooperating to solve global problems like the spread of nuclear weapons.

Both mentioned the issues that still divide them — Russia’s opposition to Washington’s plans for a missile defense shield in central Europe and U.S. insistence on Georgia’s territorial integrity — but stressed the positive aspects.

The two leaders pledged to finalize a treaty by the year-end to cut the number of deployed nuclear warheads on each side to 1,500-1,675 from levels above 2,200.

Russia said it would allow 4,500 flights a year carrying U.S. troops and weapons to Afghanistan to cross its territory free of charge, a move hailed by the U.S. side as showing Moscow’s willingness to help in the war against the Taliban.

“We have resolved to reset U.S.-Russia relations so that we can cooperate more effectively,” said Obama.

Medvedev described their talks as “very useful and open, business-like conversations” and said they would aim to build a U.S.-Russian relationship worthy of the 21st century.

(Writing by Michael Stott; editing by Jon Boyle) – Reuters

A senior Iranian official slammed Monday statements by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden that Israel has a sovereign right to decide what is in its best interest in dealing with Iran’s nuclear ambitions and said Tehran would respond “in a very full-scale and very decisive way” if attacked.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has signaled his agreement with U.S. President Barack Obama’s end-of-the-year deadline for progress in efforts to engage Iran diplomatically to resolve dispute over its nuclear program.

In an interview on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday interview program, Biden said Israel can determine for itself how best to deal with the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.

“We cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do when they make a determination, if they make a determination, that they’re existentially threatened,” Biden said.

Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Danny Ayalon, said neither the U.S. nor Israel could allow Iran to gain a nuclear weapon.

“The U.S., like Israel … has determined unequivocally that Iran must not have nuclear military capability,” Ayalon told Israel’s Army Radio.

“A military operation in Iran is something difficult and complex and perhaps would have severe consequences and there could be serious damage, but this is much less dangerous and complicated than to allow a nuclear Iran,” he said.

Iran’s reaction

Meanwhile in response to Biden’s comments an Iranian official speaking in Japan hours after the U.S. broadcast the interview said Israel would be making a big mistake if it attacked the Islamic Republic.

“I think that America and Israel are fully aware what kind of result such a wrong judgment will entail,” Alaeddin Boroujerdi, chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, said in Tokyo.

“Israel showed its military power sufficiently in the 22-day war” in the Gaza Strip earlier this year, he told reporters. “That kind of erroneous judgment poses a threat to the entire Middle Eastern region and the world.”

He added: “If (an Israeli attack) occurred, then the Islamic Republic of Iran will respond in a very full-scale and very decisive way.”

World embargo

Netanyahu, who took office in March, has said Israel cannot allow Tehran to acquire nuclear weapons and has not ruled out a possible military strike against Iran.

Israel, which is the only nuclear power in the Middle East, has said a nuclear-armed Iran would be a threat to its existence. Iran denies it is enriching uranium for military purposes, saying its nuclear development is aimed at generating electricity.

Israel bombed a site in Syria in 2007 that U.S. intelligence officials said was a nearly completed nuclear reactor being built with North Korean help. In 1981, Israel bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor.

“If the Netanyahu government decides to take a course of action different than the one being pursued now, that is their sovereign right to do that. That is not our choice,” Biden said. “But there is no pressure from any nation that’s going to alter our behavior as to how to proceed.”

Similarly, Israel said it had never asked for Washington’s permission for operations or strategic policy.

“Of course, as allies we coordinate things and we make joint assessments but there should be no confusion, we do what is right and good for us according to our own estimates,” Ayalon said.

The U.N. Security Council has imposed three sets of sanctions on Tehran for defying its demand to suspend uranium enrichment, which could also be used to produce nuclear weapons.

The United States has joined Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain in inviting Iran to talks to resolve the nuclear dispute.

Israel’s Mossad intelligence chief Meir Dagan said last month a world embargo had altered the course of Tehran’s nuclear program since 2003, but that Iran could have an atomic weapon by 2014 unless these steps were intensified. – Al Arabiya

Boiko Borisov

Exit polls in Bulgaria indicate the centre-right party led by ex-body guard and Mayor of Sofia Boiko Borisov is heading for a significant victory.

His Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) looks set to take 40% of the vote – more than half that of the ruling Socialist Party.

But the BBC’s Europe correspondent says while it will be a remarkable win, it is not enough for GERB to govern alone.

Mr Borisov promised to end corruption and tackle the economic downturn.

It has been Bulgaria’s first election since joining the European Union two years ago.

Last year, Bulgaria lost access to some of its EU funds for failing to deal with graft and organised crime.

The BBC’s Nick Thorpe says Bulgarians have a habit of voting governments out of office, doing so at each general election for the past 19 years.

According to exit polls, Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev’s Socialist Party is trailing far behind, with between 17% and 19% of the vote.

The ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms are placed third with around 12% and the ultra-nationalist Ataka party fourth, with 9%.

The exit polls give around 8% to Mr Borisov’s preferred coalition partner, the Blue Coalition.

A stable governing coalition needs at least 121 seats in the 240 seat parliament.

The first official results are expected early on Monday. – BBC

US Vice-President Joe Biden has hinted the administration will not restrain Israel if it decides on military action to remove any Iranian nuclear threat.

Mr Biden told ABC television the US could not “dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do”.

Mr Biden also said President Obama’s offer of dialogue with Iran remained.

Mr Obama has given Iran until the end of the year to talk about its nuclear programme, which Iran insists is for energy purposes only.

Western countries are concerned Tehran is working to acquire a nuclear weapons capability.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has indicated Israel would take matters into its own hands if Iran did not show a willingness to negotiate.

No hypotheticals

Appearing on ABC’s current affairs programme This Week, host George Stephanopoulos asked Mr Biden whether the Israeli position was the right approach.

The vice-president replied: “Israel can determine for itself – it’s a sovereign nation – what’s in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else.”

He added that this was the case, “whether we agree or not” with the Israeli view.

Asked whether the US would stand in the way if the Israelis decided to launch a military attack against Iranian nuclear facilities, Mr Biden said Israel, like the US, had a right to “determine what is in its interests”.

White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said Mr Biden was not signalling any change of approach on Iran or Israel.

“The vice president refused to engage [in] hypotheticals, and he made clear that our policy has not changed,” he was quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency. – BBC

There is a thread of dishonesty running through the government, says Tory leader.

David Cameron today launched a blistering personal attack on the prime minister, claiming there was a “thread of dishonesty” running through his premiership.

The Conservative leader stopped short of calling Gordon Brown a liar but claimed the prime minister said “black is white” and his government had “lost touch with morality”.

He described the apparent postponement of the next government spending review as an attempt to “cover up the truth about Labour’s cuts”.

The Tory leader said the move was part of the government’s “pattern of deception” in the recent row over future spending on public services.

Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, indicated today that the government would not set out new public spending plans before the next general election, arguing it was currently impossible to forecast the economy two years ahead.

But speaking at a Westminster press conference today, Cameron said: “Cancelling the spending review is nothing to do with economic uncertainty and everything to do with political manoeuvring.

“It is a blatant attempt to cover up the truth about Labour’s cuts.”

Listing a catalogue of issues on which he claimed the prime minister had not told the truth, Cameron said: “There is now a huge amount of deceit about the government’s spending plans … I believe there is a thread of dishonesty running through this premiership.

“From cancelling the election and then saying it had nothing to do with the opinion polls, to his claim that abolishing the 10p income tax [rate] would have nothing to do in terms of hitting the poor.

“We’ve had his insistence that Alistair Darling is his first choice as chancellor. We all know that wasn’t true.”

Cameron added: “At the end of the day the truth will out. The prime minister is calculating that the public are too stupid to notice it. I have much more respect for the public than that.”

Asked whether he was prepared to go into the next election with the Conservative party proposing public spending cuts while the government pledged to increase spending, Cameron replied: “I don’t care what the government does any more. They can announce cuts, they can announce increases, they can set out whatever they want. Set the whole thing to music and do a karaoke. I have lost faith in a prime minister who stands up and says black is white. We will make our own decisions about what’s right for the country.”

Pressed further about Brown’s claims that a Conservative government would cut spending, Cameron referred to tactics he claimed were being used in the upcoming Norwich North byelection. “When you see the leaflets they have put out I don’t know how the prime minister gets out of bed in the morning,” Cameron said.

“At the end of a government like this I think they have lost not only touch with the public but all sense of morality. They have got to be honest about their own spending plans.”

Asked directly whether he thought Brown was a liar, Cameron said he had chosen his words carefully, but he added: “I have said there is a thread of dishonesty running through the government. We have got someone [the prime minster] who is not being straight with us. I cannot put it any clearer than that.”

During the hour-long press conference the Tory leader announced that from December all member of the shadow cabinet would give up their second jobs, and he published a list of shadow cabinet outside interests as of 1 July. He also challenged Lord Mandelson’s claim this morning that a controversial vote on Royal Mail would have to be postponed due to lack of parliamentary time.

He suggested extending the parliamentary sitting for an extra day to accommodate the debate and said he would look into whether it was possible to allot an opposition day debate to ensure the proposal gets a second reading. – Guardian

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama scoffed at the idea that he should apologize to Iran’s leaders for criticizing their violent crackdown on demonstrators and said Friday it was President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who must answer to his own people.

Standing next to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Obama said the United States and Germany share “one voice” in condemning the Iranian effort to crush dissent. He said Iran’s leaders cannot hide the “outrageous” behavior of clamping down violently on their people.

“We see it and we condemn it,” Obama said.

Said Merkel: “We will not forget this.”

Obama spoke in a joint White House appearance with Merkel after they conferred privately. The two leaders have met three times since Obama took office, allies linked by such international troubles as the war in Afghanistan and a worldwide recession.

Obama said it was too soon to tell how potential direct contact between the United States and Iran will be affected by the recent events. Attempting to break from his predecessor George W. Bush, Obama has sought to loosen the diplomatic freeze with Iran, but that effort is now in question — at best.

Keeping pressure on Iran’s rulers, Obama emphasized the rights of the people there.

“Their bravery in the face of brutality is a testament to their enduring pursuit of justice,” Obama said.

“The violence perpetrated against them is outrageous. In spite of the government’s efforts to keep the world from bearing witness to that violence, we see it and we condemn it.”

Merkel backed Obama’s stand. And she said Iran must be kept from getting a nuclear weapon.

Iran’s violent postelection chaos has captured the world’s attention and elicited increasingly sharp condemnations from Obama. Iran’s ruling clergy have widened the clampdown on the opposition since a bitterly disputed June 12 presidential election, and scattered protests have replaced the initial mass rallies.

At least 17 people have been killed in a state-led crackdown on protesters.

Incumbent President Ahmadinejad was proclaimed the landslide winner over opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Obama’s comments on Friday got more direct about the two leaders.

He said Mousavi had captured the spirit and imagination of the Iranian people who want a more free society.

And he dismissed statements by Ahmadinejad, who on Thursday compared Obama to Bush. Obama said he is not meddling in Iran’s affairs but rather calling for principles recognized around the world.

“A government that treats its own citizens with that kind of ruthlessness and violence and that cannot deal with peaceful protesters who are trying to have their voices heard in an equally peaceful way have moved outside of universal norms — international norms — that are important to uphold,” Obama said.

State TV in Iran quoted Ahmadinejad as saying on Thursday: “We expect nothing from the British government and other European governments, whose records and backgrounds are known to everybody and who have no dignity. But I wonder why Mr. Obama, who has come with the slogan of change, has fallen into this trap, the same route that Mr. Bush took and experienced its ending.”

The Iranian leader has told Obama to “show your repentance.”

Obama said he doesn’t take such statements seriously.

“He might want to consider looking at the families of those beaten or shot or detained,” Obama said. “That’s where Mr. Ahmadinejad and others need to answer their questions.”

Merkel pledged an effort to identify the victims of violence of Iran — who they are and what happened to them.

“Iran cannot count on the world turning a blind eye,” she said.

Obama made clear there will be no international letup in trying to keep Iran from developing nuclear weaponry. He said an existing coalition of nations, including the U.S., China and Russia, will continue to talk with Iran about the nuclear matter. As for whether there’s any prospect for direct U.S.-Iran talks, Obama kept open his options: “I think we’re going to have to see how that plays itself out in the days and weeks ahead.”

Obama used Merkel’s visit to promote his working relationship with the German leader, whose support he needs on a range of international matters.

“I trust her when she says something,” Obama said.

Both Obama and Merkel promoted efforts in their nations to combat the warming of the planet. Obama’s words — praising Germany’s leadership and pushing the United States to show its own — came as the House moved toward a historic vote Friday on a bill to overhaul U.S. energy policy.

Merkel praised the potential congressional action, saying she would not have expected such a step in the U.S. a year ago, when Bush was president. The bill would impose the nation’s first limits on greenhouse gases linked to global warming and shift the country away from some of its reliance on oil, coal and gas.

Obama said the administration and Congress are still working to create “the framework where we can help lead the international effort.”

“We’re not going to get there all in one fell swoop,” he said.

On Iraq, Obama sought to offer perspective as sporadic but deadly bombings continue to unnerve the nation. U.S. combat troops face a June 30 deadline to leave cities there, part of a broader and gradual withdrawal that is to end American involvement under Obama’s watch.

The president said bombings will continue, but overall “Iraq’s security situation has continued to dramatically improve.”

He said the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki must strengthen the nation’s security forces and make progress on the political “give-and-take” leading up to parliamentary elections scheduled for Jan. 30. He said he has not seen as much political progress as he would like.

Obama said Merkel has not committed to taking detainees from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, but the German chancellor said her country would not shirk its responsibilities and she was confident there would be a satisfactory resolution of the issue.

Obama said he respects Germany’s national security concerns, and he said he has been pleased by the general response in Europe to his request that countries help take detainees so the much-criticized prison in Cuba can be shut down.  – By BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writer

(CNN) — South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford admitted Wednesday, amid speculation over his whereabouts for the last several days, that he has been engaged in an extramarital affair with an Argentinian woman.

“I’ve been unfaithful to my wife,” the Republican governor told a news conference in Columbia, the state capital. “I developed a relationship with what started as a dear, dear friend from Argentina.”

His voice choking at times, Sanford apologized to his wife and four sons, his staff and supporters, and said he would resign immediately as head of the Republican Governors Association. The affair was discovered five months ago, Sanford said.

The South Carolina governor had not been seen in public since June 18. When questioned, Sanford’s staff had told media outlets that he was hiking in the Appalachian Trail. But Sanford was spotted Wednesday in Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia. Watch Sanford admit to the affair »

The South Carolina governor said he had been in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He said it was his fault for “shrouding this larger trip.”

“I’m a bottom-line kind of guy. I’ll lay it out, it’s going to hurt, and we’ll let the chips fall as they may,” Sanford said as he spoke with reporters.

Sanford said his affair began as a friendship, but “over this last year, it developed into something much more than that.”

“All I can say is that I apologize,” he said, adding that he would appreciate a “zone of privacy” for the sake of his family.

When asked if he is trying to reconcile with his wife, Jenny, Sanford nodded, “I am, yeah.” Recent political sex scandals »

Pressed further on whether he and his wife are separated, he said, “I don’t know how you want to define that. I mean, I’m here and she’s there. I guess in a formal sense we’re not, but what we’re trying to do is work through something that we’ve been working through for a number of months now.”

Sanford, 49, is a conservative Republican mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2012. He is serving his second straight term as governor, which expires in January 2011. The state constitution prohibits a third straight term.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour immediately takes over as head of the Republican Governors Association, CNN has learned.

“The news revealed today hurts all of us who have gotten to know Governor Sanford over the years and so it is with regret that the RGA accepted Governor Sanford’s resignation as chairman,” Barbour said in a statement obtained by CNN that will be distributed Wednesday afternoon. “While this news is deeply disappointing, I also know it’s important to remain focused on the future and Governor Sanford’s resignation allows him and us to do just that.”

Shortly after Sanford’s announcement, Democratic Governors Association Executive Director Nathan Daschle issued a statement saying, “Our thoughts and prayers are with Gov. Sanford and his family, and I wish them the best as they try to heal this wound.”

The South Carolina governor has had a bruising year, losing his fight to turn down $700 million in federal stimulus money. Sanford initially tried to require that any stimulus money pay down the state debt, a stance rejected by the Obama administration.

The South Carolina’s Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that Sanford had to accept the stimulus funds.

Earlier Wednesday, South Carolina Democratic Party Chairwoman Carol Fowler said in a statement it was the “height of irresponsibility for the governor to walk out on his solemn duty to the people of South Carolina.

“When it comes to the real needs and concerns of South Carolinians, Mark Sanford has been pretty much missing in action for the last six-and-a-half years. But it is not acceptable for him to be actually missing.

“However, as disturbing as it is to walk out on your responsibilities without telling anyone, what’s more troubling is that the governor and his staff have been less than truthful about his whereabouts,” the statement said.

Sanford’s wife Jenny told CNN on Tuesday she had not talked to her husband since he left last Thursday and did not know where he went.

“I am being a mom today. I have not heard from my husband. I am taking care of my children,” she said outside the couple’s beach home on Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina. – CNN