(1) A diplomatic source said the killing appeared particularly unusual because of Farooq lack of recent political activity: "He was lying low in the past two years.
(2) 'The French see it as an open and shut case,' says a Paris-based diplomat.
(3) Western diplomats acknowledge that the capture of Qusair is likely to have emboldened President Bashar al-Assad , making him less likely to consider concessions – let alone stepping down.
(4) Chapman and the other "illegals" – sleeper agents without diplomatic cover – seem to have done little to harm American national security.
(5) Diplomatic posts also bypassed the media and took the message directly to the public; for example, the Hong Kong consulate sent DVDs of a pro-biotech presentation to every high school.
(6) "It's a very open question as to whether this will come," said a diplomat in Brussels, adding that Cameron could find himself in the lonely position of being the sole national leader urging a renegotiation.
(7) "We won't cancel any of our agreements," a senior Israeli diplomatic official told reporters.
(8) "It's a dangerous sign to send and it limits our ability to find a diplomatic solution to nuclear arms in Iran," he said.
(9) Senior civil servant Simon Case joined the UK’s EU embassy in March to lead work on the new partnership with the bloc, but EU diplomats are unsure how he fits into the picture.
(10) It also devalues the courage of real whistleblowers who have used proper channels to hold our government accountable.” McCain added: “It is a sad, yet perhaps fitting commentary on President Obama’s failed national security policies that he would commute the sentence of an individual that endangered the lives of American troops, diplomats, and intelligence sources by leaking hundreds of thousands of sensitive government documents to WikiLeaks, a virulently anti-American organisation that was a tool of Russia’s recent interference in our elections.” WikiLeaks last year published emails hacked from the accounts of the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta, chairman of Hillary Clinton’s election campaign.
(11) A new round of negotiations over the future of Iran's nuclear programme got under way on Wednesday, bringing together the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, the EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, and top diplomats from the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia and China.
(12) The four members of the committee are all masters of wine, and the chairman is a retired diplomat, Sir David Wright.
(13) Euromaidan was a delayed echo of the social unrest wave , driven by the country's economic failure; it collided with a diplomatic situation that was already fractious over Syria.
(14) Its diplomatic machinery is a little bit rusty," said Zhu Feng, of Peking University's centre for international and strategic studies.
(15) An intimate account of her last hours was given on Monday by Lady (Carla) Powell, the Italian wife of Thatcher's former diplomatic adviser Lord Powell, who had visited her often in her declining years, and whose house outside Rome the former prime minister had visited on several occasions.
(16) The interior minister, Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, left a gathering of the Mexican diplomatic corps to take a call from President Enrique Peña Nieto.
(17) During previous upheavals in relations, such as over the Syrian crisis, conversations have taken place between diplomats.
(18) China INDC This would be “a key” to success of the UN climate talks, a French diplomatic official said, because the current national pledges won’t be enough to achieve the goal of keeping the rise in global temperatures below 2C between pre-industrial times and the end of the century.
(19) France was meanwhile leading a push, which diplomats said was backed by Britain, to hit more strategic military targets in Libya, beyond tactical airstrikes on Gaddafi's armour in the vicinity of cities such as Misrata and Ajdabiya.
(20) It has brought waves of Australian diplomats and functionaries implementing strategies to douse local disgruntlement at the profound social, cultural, environmental and economic impacts their operation has brought.
Ultimatum
Definition:
(n.) A final proposition, concession, or condition; especially, the final propositions, conditions, or terms, offered by either of the parties in a diplomatic negotiation; the most favorable terms a negotiator can offer, the rejection of which usually puts an end to the hesitation.
Example Sentences:
(1) The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf) made clear that it would stick to an ultimatum it gave Morsi on Monday that urged the embattled president to respond to a wave of mass protests within 48 hours or face an intervention which would in effect subsume his government.
(2) I wonder if this form of ultimatum, which Mr. Winston condemns, is likely to increase now that this operation is performed under a fee-for-service system?
(3) Delivering ultimatums is a sorry way to go about a ministry, but we will hang on by our fingertips, sad and furious in equal measure, until the authority of women and men is accepted by the church we love but, at times like this, find impossible to defend.
(4) Egypt's president, Mohamed Morsi , vowed to protect his presidency with his life on Tuesday night, hours before an ultimatum from the leader of Egypt's armed forces is due to expire.
(5) The tiny republic said it would consign the Yugoslav federation to history unless its ultimatum was met within days.
(6) "We would like to propose to the Russian side that before issuing ultimatums to a sovereign and independent state, it turn its attention to the disastrous conditions and complete powerlessness of its own national minorities, including the Ukrainian one," read the statement.
(7) Merkel and Sarkozy, in issuing their ultimatum to Greece on Wednesday night, acknowledged that is possible for a country to leave the eurozone.
(8) Martin Rowson on the Greek crisis negotiations – cartoon Read more “After five months of hard negotiations our partners, unfortunately, ended up making a proposal that was an ultimatum towards Greek democracy and the Greek people,” he said in a national address, “an ultimatum at odds with the founding principles and values of Europe , the values of our common European construction.” The leader, who only hours earlier had rejected the proposed reforms after several days of high-stakes talks in Brussels, said Greeks now faced a “historic responsibility” to respond to the ultimatum.
(9) The warships remained anchored in the Crimean port of Sevastopol early on Tuesday, a day after Ukrainian authorities claimed that Russian forces had issued an ultimatum for the ships to surrender or be seized.
(10) One nicotine-free boyfriend issued me with an ultimatum to quit: "I love you and I just want to know that you won't die after we get married."
(11) Merkel's chief of staff, Ronald Pofalla, who is responsible for overseeing the German intelligence services, signalled that Berlin had delivered an ultimatum to Washington.
(12) Yet the moment we proposed the benchmarks, canvassed support for an ultimatum, there was an immediate recourse to the language of the veto.
(13) UPDATE: The Russian defence ministry denies any such ultimatum .
(14) He recently claimed that Bon Jovi offered him an ultimatum: “Join or leave.” “I said I wanted a break.
(15) Leaders in Brussels spoke of the worst crisis in Europe since the second world war, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) set ultimatums before the 17 countries of the single currency, and international ratings agencies classified the bailout terms for Greece as a likely default.
(16) March 3, 2014 UPDATE: Oksana Grytsenko called a Ukrainian navy spokesman, who told her “as far as I know” an ultimatum “has been voiced”, but he referred to a different time for the ultimatum than originally reported by Interfax, which – conflicting times for the assigned zero-hour – would seem to undercut the whole point of an ultimatum.
(17) Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister who will chair next week’s Luxembourg meeting, delivered an ultimatum to Athens, warning it would be left “alone” if it did not meet the creditors’ terms for securing remaining bailout funds.
(18) Then, in April, the men returned following Chowdhury's ultimatum.
(19) The whole national health system has undergone cost cuts to comply with an ultimatum from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund; otherwise, sorely needed dollar loans would not be forthcoming.
(20) Addressing parliament ahead of the crucial vote, Tsipras, who succumbed to the demands of foreign lenders earlier this month – accepting an ultimatum to find €12bn of savings, by far the heaviest austerity package to date – conceded that his government had been defeated.