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Here are some key highlights:

Jules Vasquez Reporting

Prime Minister Dean Barrow - Prime Minister of Belize
"The objective of the press conference, today, is to provide all possible information to the nation. But it is also, I tell you plainly, to seek support, to rally the country behind what is a necessary and just endeavour."

Flanked by his debt restructuring team, including Minister Godwin Hulse, Economic Ambassador Mark Espat , Financial Secretary Joe Waight and Central Bank Governor Glen Ysaguirre.

The Prime Minister laid plain the national strategy - which is that no payment will be made until suitable terms for a new bond can be worked out.

And he says, no payment could be made two days ago when 46 million dollars was due on the current Superbond.

Prime Minister Dean Barrow
"No source of funding for the August payment did, in fact, materialize. We therefore, on Monday, could not pay. And that will remain the case unless we get the kind of relief that can affect these debt dynamics and in fact impact our ability to pay. However, I am obliged to underscore that the Government of Belize will only accept a resolution that fully reflects the country's capacity to pay. Debt sustainability is the whole and entire object of this exercise, which brooks no other possibility."

And after his prepared remarks, Barrow took questions from the local and, international press including Bloomberg and Time Magazine - giving off an airy and detached cool

Prime Minister Dean Barrow
"Debt relief for Belize is a sure thing, unavoidable, and is going to happen. So, we're in fact - in my view - only talking about degree. We make clear that we are not at all at a point where there is any contemplation of any possibility that the negotiations will not proceed. And we make clear, one again, that we are absolutely confident of success. We're absolutely confident that we can reach an agreed solution with our creditors. If - Lord forbid - that does not happen, Belize is prepared for all the options."

But, those options do not include devaluation or seizure of foreign assets according to the PM:

Prime Minister Dean Barrow
"If there were to be a default, let me make absolutely clear that this has nothing to do with the stability of our currency, nothing to do with the fixed exchange rate peg. So, even if - worst case scenario - there were to be a Belizean default with respect to the Superbond, that can in no ways affect the soundness of our currency. The question of for example, being locked out of capital markets - and that would assuredly be one consequence of default - but how does that make us any worse off? We're locked out of capital markets even now. If there is a default, and that is followed by litigation on the part of the bondholders, well that's something that, again, we have to look at. All I will say is that countries that have previously defaulted: Argentina, Equador - for example, I don't think bondholders have gotten very far in trying to seize the assets of those countries abroad. And I don't think that I am giving away any state secret when I say that, I don't know about assets that this country has abroad, so."

But, the PM had to play it up for the hometown crowd, while also carefully watching his remarks which will be scrutinized by international bondholders. He made it clear that it is not that Belize doesn't want to pay, but that it cannot:

Prime Minister Dean Barrow
"Superbond holders are not being asked to serve as first responders to Belize's public debt crisis. In fact, our approach to these creditors has been crafted and comes only after we have, in this country made painful sacrifices. And you know things we would have liked to do for the Belizean people but have been prevented from doing? No, there is no doubt in our minds that we have made the sacrifices that have sometimes been almost too painful to endure. And so, we are in both an excellent moral as well as economic position. I say that it is nothing short of small miracle that this UDP Administration proceeded to fulfill every debt obligation after it took office, including paying almost 300 million dollars in interest on the Superbond."

But, Belize will pay no more, and responding to one criticism that called the proposed 45% principal haircut a scalping, the PM did not reject the analogy:

Prime Minister Dean Barrow
"If the circumstances require a scalping, then that is what the circumstances require."

And the PM says that the new deal will be the final deal:

Prime Minister Dean Barrow
"What we're doing, as an effort to once and for all, come to terms with our debt profile, there's not going to be after this, any other restructuring. This is it, we're in for all the marbles."

And nearing the end of the press conference, members of the negotiating team Ambassador Mark Espat and Governor Glen Ysaguirre left for Washington where they will hold meetings with the IDB and others.

The IDB's support is critical because they are being asked to partially guarantee the restructured bond - a deal which we gather from the Prime Minister's tone is some distance from being sealed.

Prime Minister Dean Barrow - Prime Minister of Belize
"We are talking about a PBL. That is the principal form of assistance that we're looking at. I will confess quite frankly that we're not there yet, and that's one of the reasons for the team leaving today to talk to IDB. Quite frankly, what is happening, I think that there are those who would want to see us engaged in a standby arrangement with the IMF. And, there are those who might feel that in trying to engage the IDB, we're an end-run around the IMF, which is not so. We're talking to both of them, and we're seeing how together, they might offer some assistance. What is clear is that we've signaled from the beginning that we're not going to go into any IMF programs. So, ultimately, if that is make or break, then break there will be."