Jose Miguel Insulza was due on a flying visit to the increasingly polarized country on Friday, shortly before the end of an OAS deadline for Honduras to bring back Zelaya or face being kicked out of the body.

"I cannot say I am confident -- I will do everything I can but I think it will be very hard to turn things around in a couple of days," Secretary General Insulza told reporters after a regional meeting in Guyana.

Insulza planned to travel to the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa on Friday to hold talks with select members of the Supreme Court and the Congress, the bodies which clashed with Zelaya over his plans to change the constitution before sending him away on Sunday.

But Insulza dismissed any idea of negotiating with the defiant instigators of the coup.

"We are not going to Honduras to negotiate, we are going to Honduras to ask them to change what they have been doing now, and find ways in which we can return to normalcy," said Insulza.

Protests have increased through the week, with daily lives disrupted by night-time curfews -- which suspend some freedoms guaranteed by the constitution -- and the country's 7.5 million inhabitants increasingly frustrated with the political impasse.

Demonstrations turned violent again on Thursday, this time in the country's main economic hub San Pedro Sula, after clashes between baton-wielding soldiers and protesters in the capital at the start of the week.

A Zelaya ally and deputy said the army had shot at protesters, injuring two.

"We have video images which show the army's aggression against demonstrators," Silvia Ayala told AFP by telephone from San Pedro Sula.

A local police commissioner said a number of protesters had been detained and that the army had intervened after demonstrators started attacking shops.

More than 20,000 people took part in a separate demonstration elsewhere in the city in favor of interim president Roberto Micheletti, many carrying banners with pictures of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez marked with black crosses.

The interim leaders blame Zelaya -- who made a sharp turn to the left, backed by Chavez, after taking power almost four years ago -- for violations of the country's constitution and numerous other crimes.

Thousands of pro-Zelaya protesters came out in Tegucigalpa, Zelaya said in Panama that a string of personalities would join him when he returned to the country, including Nobel Prize winners and presidents.

The presidents of Argentina and Ecuador, Christina Kirchner and Rafael Correa, and Guatemalan Nobel Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu had offered to accompany him, Zeyala said, without mentioning a return date.

The international community meanwhile heaped further pressure on Honduras.

All EU countries with embassies in Honduras have withdrawn their ambassadors following the coup last weekend that ousted President Manuel Zelaya, the Swedish EU presidency announced Thursday.

The Inter-American Development Bank on Wednesday halted aid, following a similar move by the World Bank. And key ally the United States indicated it may follow suit, saying it would wait until Monday before making a decision.

The Pentagon suspended all military activities with Tegucigalpa until further notice, a spokesman said.

Roberto Micheletti, a member of Zelaya's own Liberal Party who took over the leadership hours after he was ousted, has remained defiant in the face of growing international isolation.

"He'll never return to power," Micheletti told AFP on Wednesday, adding that he would send a delegation to the United States next week to explain the coup leaders' side of the story.

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