WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama on Monday declared that the United States still considers Manuel Zelaya to be the president of Honduras and assailed the coup that forced him into exile as 'not legal,' widening the chasm between the Central American nation and much of the rest of the world.

'It would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition rather than democratic elections,' Obama said in the Oval Office after meeting with Colombian President Alviro Uribe.

'The region has made enormous progress over the last 20 years in establishing democratic traditions in Central America and Latin America. We don't want to go back to a dark past.'

Leaders from across the Western Hemisphere and beyond called for return to power of Zelaya, who was arrested Sunday morning by soldiers who stormed his residence and forced him into exile.

The country now has another president appointed by its Congress, Roberto Micheletti, who insisted that Zelaya was removed legally by the courts and Congress for violating Honduras' constitution and attempting to extend his own rule.

As the military takeover roiled a region that Obama just visited in April, he sought a political balance of showing firmness without boxing himself in.

Obama said the US must always 'stand with democracy' even if doesn't like the results of elections.

But he was careful to cast the crisis as not one that the United States must solve alone, and he did not explicitly demand that Zelaya be returned to power. Rather, he said the US would work with international partners on the less-defined goal of trying to ''resolve this in a peaceful way.'

The president also was careful when asked about the underlying conflict in Honduras, the referendum Zelaya had called in defiance of Honduras' courts and Congress. Zelaya's opponents saw it as a way for him to ultimately stay in power beyond his one-term limit. The vote never took place.

Obama said such matters are up to each country to decide, stirring up echoes of his comments on Iran, whose electoral crisis has grabbed world attention.

'What's ultimately most important is that the people feel a sense of legitimacy and ownership, and that this is not something imposed on them from the top, that it does not involve manipulations of the electorate or, you know, rigging of the electoral process or repression of opposition voices,' Obama said Monday.