“I was accompanied by the Attorney General, as well as Ambassador Espat and this time I met not only with our own advisors but with the bondholders, or rather, to be more accurate, with the two co-chairs of the committee representing the bondholders.
“We had a long exhaustive and perhaps draining meeting on Thursday. I would characterize the meeting as having been tough but I’m happy to say that it never became contentious or if it did become contentious it never became rancorous. There was no bitterness, no discourtesy. At the end of the meeting my assessment is that the positions have been greatly narrowed.
“Government left off then from that meeting with a new position in which there has been movement on our part, but a new position that really represents our final position. The two co-chairs representing Greylock and another outfit called GMO must now take back what we have offered as our last position to the other members of the committee. They are only the co-chairs, the committee, I think, perhaps constitutes its representation from maybe six or certainly five organizations and then there’s the larger number of bondholders. So it’ll be a while before we know finally what the position is.
“In the meantime, because I am sure I can anticipate your next question, we won’t pay the coupon that is due on Monday. Monday is a holiday in the U.S.A. in any event so it would not have been paid on Monday but it could perhaps have been paid on Tuesday. We won’t pay but it would not be fair to describe that non-payment as default because, remember, that there is a thirty-day grace period. So we will be going into the grace period but I really hope that we can wrap this up well before the expiration of that grace period.”