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Hon. Wilfred Elrington, Minister of Foreign Affairs
"Good evening Jules and good evening Belize. Let me start off by thanking you for taking the trouble to travel all the way here to Washington to get live and direct what has been transpiring. We started negotiating with the Guatemalan team under the auspices of the OAS with the Secretary General and his team at 3pm this afternoon. It's now 8:20, so we have been going for about 5 hours and 20 minutes. We think we made very good progress. All of us participated in the negotiation. I think that at one point or the other all of us had a chance to speak. Alexis Rosado, Belize Ambassador to Guatemala, General Jones and our man in Washington Ambassador Andrews and of course Miss Ardel who is always there. I think we made very good progress. Alexis is normally the one who takes the most comprehensive notes of what transpires at meetings and if you don't mind I will ask him to share with the Belizean people."

Jules Vasquez
"Ambassador, do we have a Sarstoon mechanism?"

H.E. Alexis Rosado, Belize Ambassador to Guatemala
"Not yet. If you recall when we were in Istanbul, we spoke about starting a negotiating process to reach an agreement on a cooperation mechanism and that cooperation mechanism is not yet completed. So today was the first meeting that we formally sat down to start negotiating the elements of such a mechanism."

So what will happen for those who go on the river? All that could be said at the end of today's five hour meeting is that both sides have agreed to de-escalate. We could not get anything more concrete than that. Here's what Belize's Ambassador to Guatemala Alexis Rosado said:

H.E. Alexis Rosado, Belize Ambassador to Guatemala
"Well for now we have some level of assurances that we will continue doing all in our power to continue de-escalating tensions in the Sarstoon River. In terms of the details, we did not reach any kind of concrete tangible agreement that I can say is part of a mechanism. But what I can tell you is that we discussed the international standards and best practices and those are the things that will guide us moving forward until such time that we reach something concrete."

Jules Vasquez
"Will Belizeans enjoy untrammeled traffic along the Sarstoon without let or hindrance from the Guatemalan military?"

H.E. Alexis Rosado, Belize Ambassador to Guatemala
"Well as you know Jules we have a very clear position and Guatemalans are aware of our position in accordance with our constitution and with international law and we have always maintained that that is our position. We did not reach an agreement to settle the differences that we have with Guatemala."

Jules Vasquez
"Have they agreed to stop harassing, intimidating, questioning Belizeans who goes down the Sarstoon?"

H.E. Alexis Rosado, Belize Ambassador to Guatemala
"Well I can tell you that we have nothing on paper about that. But we are determined that that is where we are heading and as far as we are concerned, the generals are in the best of working relationships and we have also committed to keep that level of communication open and if anybody wants to test it, they should go down there and see what happens."

We'll have more for you in tomorrow's newscast.