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Ousted President Manuel Zelaya has confirmed he will be returning to Honduras to try to retake office following last week''s military-backed coup, despite warnings it could spark a violent response.

He spoke shortly after the Organisation of American States (OAS) voted to suspend the participation of the Central American nation for refusing to restore Zelaya.

At an emergency meeting in Washington, 33 OAS nations backed the resolution suspending Honduras'' membership, with none opposed and Honduras abstaining. It was the first time in nearly 20 years that the OAS has taken such a step due to a military coup.

The last country to suffer such a fate was Haiti in 1990, after General Raoul Cedras'' putsch against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Argentine Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana, reading the resolution before the body, said on Sunday that the suspension would take effect "immediately".

However Zelaya''s replacement in Honduras'' interim government, Roberto Micheletti, had already pulled the country out of the group over itsultimatum to restore Zelaya.

After the vote, Argentinean President Cristina Fernandez remembered in her speech the military coups that brought a deathly repression to many Latin American countries in the 1960s and ''70s and asked the OAS for "a common strategy" to reinstate Zelaya.

This vote also deepened the poor Central American nation''s international isolation ahead of a looming showdown on Sunday in the Honduran capital, where Zelaya plans to return despite warnings of a potentially bloody confrontation and the interim government''s vow to arrest him and put him on trial.

Zelaya called on supporters to gather en masse to greet him at the airport.

In comments to a local radio station, Zelaya said he would be accompanied by Argentine President Cristina Fernandez, Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, several foreign ministers and 300 journalists.

However, earlier Fernandez said OAS officials would accompany Zelaya on his return, but no national leaders would be joining him and many aspects of Zelaya''s planned return remain sketchy.

Some country members of the OAS, like Canada and Costa Rica, recommended Zelaya to wait a little longer.

OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza said at a brief press conference that he would be on the plane with Zelaya, while the former Honduras ambassador to the OAS Carlos Sosa added that no other foreign president would be accompanying Zelaya.

In an interview with Venezuelan channel Telesur outside the OAS headquarters in Washington DC, Zelaya said he had invited many representatives of different organisations but did not want to give names.

He plans to leave Washington DC between 10am and 11am (1400 to 1500GMT), but said he had not yet chosen the airport where his plane will land.

Zelaya was taken from his home at gunpoint by soldiers and flown into exile on June 25, after months of pushing for a constitutional referendum that Honduras'' courts and congress had called illegal.

Many suspected the referendum was an attempt by Zelaya to remain in power after his term ends in January, though he denied that.

OAS suspension could mean economic sanctions and active diplomatic encouragement to other organisations around the hemisphere to halt aid and loans to Honduras, possibly further destabilising an already volatile and impoverished nation plagued by drug and gang violence.