Alatriste and Quevedo must, of course, save him, a task that in the event involves remarkably little swashbuckling and quite a bit of back-channel negotiation.

But Jerusalem is very much on the table in the serious, non-secret back-channel negotiations that are under way in Stockholm.

But insiders say that this was made possible through back-channel negotiations in the wake of the Magdalo leaders' apology.

By the time the Chinese invited the American team, he said, he and President Nixon were already involved in back-channel negotiations to hold talks between the two nations.

In the confusion, Mr. Abed Rabbo, the senior Palestinian negotiator, quit his post, saying back-channel negotiations were making the official, American-mediated ones meaningless.

Part of the Oslo process involved the famous back-channel negotiations, which were mediated by Norway.

In the meantime, all sorts of back-channel negotiations are under way.

A senior American official said that in on-and-off talks over the last seven months, including back-channel negotiations in Stockholm, the two sides had "demythologized" the issues.

Discusses in more detail the process of the back-channel negotiations.

The Iraqi delegation, unaware of the back-channel negotiations, scoffed at the proposal and general apathy pushed it aside.