And if Mr Christofias, an old communist, can keep his nationalist coalition partners at bay, there is enough time before the election for the two leaders to agree on an optimistic statement of progress that could further boost Mr Talat.
Observers of the Middle East pointed to the lack of a formal statement of progress as confirmation that the two sides were indeed as far apart on the details of renewed negotiations as they seemed.
Only triumphalist statements of progress in the fight against sensible gun control and dire talk about how we're all at risk of someone bursting into our homes or swimming pools at any minute.
"This is an important statement of the progress that's being made".
Another day, another $4 billion added to the national debt, and another statement of "no progress" from leaders in Congress.
But after the carefully assembled textural variety of "Earthly Delights," this album is a throwback to the group's fundamental low-fi assault — less a premeditated statement of musical progress than a controlled release of pressure.
On one hand, a senior administration official said, the Chinese were preparing their public for release of the crew by saying in the official press that Secretary Powell's statement of sorrow represented progress.
He complained about the agency's excessive slowness in redeveloping ground zero. A. Larry's statement that the pace of progress has been too slow is accurate.
This meeting is still likely to end with a feel-good statement that some form of progress has been made towards the 2015 goal, but the danger is that between now and that crucial date any further upsets, backsliding, failure to agree finance or deepening rifts between rich and poor could derail the whole process.
But the disclosure of the meeting indicated that private discussions continue in the face of Republican leaders' public statements deploring the lack of progress and the president's refusal so far to specify the sort of deep, long-term reductions in spending for social programs that they insist upon as a condition of their support for raising taxes on high earners.
When asked to comment on AIDS in Westchester, Mr. Clinton said in a statement that a great deal of progress against H.I.V. and AIDS had been made in this country in the last decade, with both rates of infection and rates of mortality declining.
