Mr. Paulson said he had little hope of reaching agreement with Democratic leaders in Congress.

It has recaptured several small villages in clashes with Kurdish rebels and failed to reach an autonomy agreement with Kurdish leaders.

The Rhodesians now offered more concessions, but those concessions, focused on reaching an "internal settlement" with moderate black leaders, were insufficient to end the war.

The speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, reached an understanding with the Shiite and Kurdish leaders after meeting with several of them, the politicians said in interviews.

In this atmosphere, Bush moved to reach a secret foreign policy consensus with key congressional leaders of both parties of the one-party state.

But the difficulty in reaching agreement with other black leaders led black members to boycott her election.

So we may - so I think what we'll end up doing is staying very close to the agreement that I reached with the Republican and Democratic leaders.

The Assembly, following an agreement reached with Republican leaders two weeks ago, approved an amendment to the bill that would bar school board members from participating in local politics.

Another was his lack of success - or lack of interest - in reaching power-sharing agreements with key leaders in the Saharan and sahelian regions.

A senior Egyptian mediator reached agreement with Palestinian leaders on Monday to start cease-fire talks among militants within two days, Palestinian officials said.