"I think it's going to be quite a hard negotiation," one Council diplomat speculated.

I know that you have both the talent and the temperament for hard negotiation.

"I'm not at all surprised that we're into good hard negotiations," he said.

"But some very tough, hard and serious negotiations lie ahead."

"We're going to have some tough, hard negotiations ahead," he said.

But he added that "the hardest negotiations are still to come."

It may take a few more years to get there, plus some pretty hard negotiation.

After hard negotiations a deal was achieved with the Council and agreed to by all political groups to my knowledge.

We will have hard and difficult negotiations with them but the dialogue has to start somewhere.

"If Rowland got this deal after long, hard negotiations, they wonder what the first offer was."