PORT-AU-PRINCE - Jean Bertrand Aristide will return to Haiti soon as the government has issued an passport for the exiled ex-president, local daily newspaper Haiti en Marche said Wednesday.

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Aristide expressed his willingness to return days after another ex-president Jean Claude Duvalier returned to Haiti on January 16.

Aristide, a leading opposition figure under Haiti's former Duvalier dictatorship, won the 1990 presidential elections and took office the in following year. But he was overthrown eight months later by General Raoul Cedras.

He returned to power in 1994 with the help of the United States and was reelected in 2000. But in 2004 he was ousted again and has been living in exile in South Africa since then.