Carberry told reporters yesterday that it was not up to him, but his party, to decide on whether he should engage Parliamentary Affairs Minister Persaud in discussions and he had not been given any such directive.

Mr. Jagdeo on Tuesday said he had again written Hoyte, this time formally accepting his proposal that their representatives (Carberry and Persaud) should meet to clarify outstanding matters to be resolved in another attempt to restart the stalled dialogue process.

The President, at a news conference, noted that he had written Mr. Hoyte sometime ago pointing out that they should have dialogue since the outstanding issues are important to the country, especially those dealing with Parliamentary matters.

He noted that in his letter to Hoyte, he said, "it is time that the two of us meet to resolve this".

Hoyte subsequently wrote the President saying that "he is sure that we didn't want to waste our time so we should get the two persons (Carberry and Persaud) to document where we were, before we meet which I thought was perfectly reasonable," Mr. Jagdeo told reporters.

The President said he wrote Hoyte Tuesday following the refusal of Carberry to meet Persaud. According to President Jagdeo, Carberry claimed that he had no mandate to meet Persaud because he (President Jagdeo) had not formally indicated his acceptance of the Opposition Leader's proposals.

The Head of State noted that his letter sent Tuesday was to "formally accept" Mr. Hoyte's proposals.

Carberry yesterday said the normal course would have been for Mr. Jagdeo to formally respond to the proposal and then he and Persaud would have met.

However, Carberry said that since Mr. Hoyte did not get a response from Mr. Jagdeo he did not engage in discussions with Persaud on June 3 and June 11, as was requested by Persaud.

He said he received a call from Persaud on Monday morning enquiring whether he had received his invitation to meet him the very afternoon.

Carberry said he did not get the invitation as he later found out it was left with the security at PNC/R headquarters Friday afternoon after he had left.

Carberry said he then asked his assistant to contact Persaud's secretary and have her fax the letter. This was done at 15:45 hrs, he told reporters.

In the letter, Persaud told Carberry it was unfortunate that he could not have met him on the two previous occasions.

The PNC/R representative said he then wrote back telling Persaud he was willing to meet him "as long as" Mr. Hoyte had received confirmation from President Jagdeo about whether he agrees or disagrees with the content of his letter of May 14.

Carberry informed Persaud that since his departure to the U.S. on June 14, Mr. Hoyte had not received a reply from Mr. Jagdeo and so he found it strange that Persaud could suggest that he was not interested in meeting him.

In his letter of June 14, President Jagdeo told Hoyte he acted on the assumption that his (Hoyte's) proposal was known to Carberry and had given Persaud the go ahead, and that he was belatedly so informing him (Hoyte).

Following the 'pause' in the dialogue process initiated by the PNC/R in March this year over perceived differences with the Government, Mr. Jagdeo noted Tuesday that he had written Hoyte requesting that the `pause' decision be reconsidered.

He said that in a subsequent reply, the Opposition Leader indicated that as a prerequisite for the resumption of the talks, the parties' negotiators, Persaud and Carberry, should meet and prepare a summary of the decisions in the dialogue process prior to the meeting between the President and the Opposition Leader.

Head of the Presidential Secretariat and Cabinet Secretary, Dr. Roger Luncheon told his regular post-Cabinet news conference Wednesday that the continuation of the dialogue process is anticipated.

"That adoption would see the negotiators preparing and submitting the detailed summary of the status of the anticipated meeting between President Jagdeo and Mr. Hoyte," he said.