On his first stop in Cyprus, "We are in substantial negotiations with our partners in Europe and those that have lent to us.
Critics have described subsequent meetings with Mr. Orr's team as more presentational than open to substantial negotiations, saying discussions had barely started when Detroit suddenly filed for Chapter 9 last month.
The EU leaders on Friday gave Russia and the rebels until Monday to take steps to ease the violence, including releasing all captives, retreating from border checkpoints, agreeing on a way to verify the cease-fire and launching "substantial negotiations" on Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko's peace plan.
Taking this ambiguity into account, the restart of substantial negotiations between His Holiness and the Chinese is not a foregone conclusion.
As I demonstrated on Friday, renewed and substantial negotiations must be sought now because the threats to Tibetan culture are real.
"We won't be initialing or signing anything here, but the progress certainly is sufficiently strong that I don't believe it will require substantial new negotiations," Ms. Barshefsky told reporters.
The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said that while obstacles remained, the parties to the talks "shared their assessment that the present negotiations are substantial and promising" and that they have put in place a "solid negotiating structure for continued progress in the future".
It is accused of failing to properly engage with Hamas before the announcement of its proposal, and of underestimating Hamas's desire to win substantial concessions from negotiations.
The document also says the Scottish government and parliament should have a "substantial" role in negotiations over the renewal of the BBC charter to ensure Scotland's interests are represented.
