However, SMG has regularly balked at modifying its lease in talks conducted over the past two years.
Its High Court has upheld the military censor's wall of secrecy around the talks, conducted via a German-government mediator.
The official described the talks, conducted in both English and Mandarin, as a routine meeting with a potential investor.
Their talks, conducted mostly in English, extended into the nights over dinner and bottles of excellent wine, with frequent smoking breaks outside for many of the French executives.
The two leaders expressed hope that direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks — following the current "proximity talks" conducted by George Mitchell, the American envoy — would begin before Israel's limited moratorium on settlement construction is due to expire in September.
In talks conducted out of the glare of public scrutiny, the two sides had reached agreement in principle on other elements of the contract, but then negotiations stalled over four issues.
Last-ditch talks conducted by Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart, Bertie Ahern, in Belfast today failed to dissuade the Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble from resigning this weekend as head of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
After the failure of settlement talks conducted at Judge Jackson's request by a federal appeals judge, Richard A. Posner, Judge Jackson ordered Microsoft split into two companies -- one for its operating system and another for the various software applications it develops.
Similarly, the Independent editorial refers to talks "conducted behind closed doors" having created "the damaging and wholly erroneous impression that there is something to hide", and adds: "It is time for the media to set out its position more clearly".
The route through Iran nonetheless might be the focus of bilateral supply talks conducted by individual NATO allies that have relations with Iran, as NATO's supreme allied commander, Gen. John Craddock, an American, suggested last month.
