On the other hand, you have called 14 or 15 times for unconditional talks and it is Hanoi that has not responded.

Mr. Tsvangirai said that his party was ready for unconditional talks with the ruling Zanu-PF but that a new election was the only way out of the current morass.

A Moslem militant leader recently released from prison has said separatist unrest in Kashmir could end if India opened unconditional talks with Kashmiris and Pakistan.

But diplomats said today that in a letter to the regional leaders he had agreed to unconditional talks.

Right now, Syria is getting a free ride by offering unconditional talks which it knows that Israel, in deference to the Bush administration, must refuse.

The United Kingdom said it would only support the motion on assurances of unconditional talk on final status issues.

Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said Monday that Iran would stand for nothing less than "unconditional" talks, though he continued to keep the door open to talks.

In return, President Slobodan Milosevic should be required to agree to the deployment of human rights monitors, numbering perhaps 1,000, in Kosovo and to unconditional talks on the autonomy of Kosovo.

Unhappily, their visit failed to persuade Mr. Mugabe to open unconditional talks with the opposition.

That was the position of the Iraq Study Group, the high level commission that last year urged direct, unconditional talks that would include Iran and Syria.