In POW camps, it was that an exchange of prisoners is imminent.
The talks ended without much progress, but at least the ideas of a ceasefire, an exchange of prisoners and further negotiations were left on the table.
Now it is demanding an exchange of prisoners: the handover of guerrillas held prisoner by the state, for hundreds of soldiers and policemen that it has captured.
Others, such as an exchange of political prisoners for kidnapped soldiers, are thorny but negotiable.
Mark Urban will give his take on what the wider impact will be of the exchange of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit on Tuesday's Newsnight, 18 October 2011, at 2230 on BBC Two.
Many suspect the meeting had another purpose: the exchange of left-wing political prisoners under a secret arrangement code-named Condor.
So it appears any real lasting cease-fire would have to include some kind of agreement to exchange prisoners that have been taken in the last week.
The Taliban seek the release of some prisoners being held in Afghanistan in exchange for the release of the hostages.
While Mr Abbas's people were busy trying to spin their way out of the Goldstone imbroglio, Hamas gleefully celebrated the release of the 20 women prisoners it had secured in exchange for a videotape of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier seized by Hamas over three years ago.
ECONOMIST: The Palestinians and the Goldstone report: Stranded between America and the street | The
What exemplified Islam for him, he said, was the decision by one early Muslim ruler to ransom Christian prisoners in exchange for works of Greek philosophy, medicine and mathematics.
Two years ago, Israel released more than 400 Arab and Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the freedom of an Israeli businessman who had been held by Hezbollah for three years, and the bodies of three Israel soldiers.
The group wants the government of Mali to free four prisoners in exchange for Camatte's release.
Hamas is demanding the release of 1, 400 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails in exchange for him.
Not for the first time, it was reported that an agreement was near that would see the release of an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit , captured by the Palestinian Islamists of Hamas three years ago, in exchange for several hundred Palestinian prisoners.
The two sides agreed tonight to restart a committee to look into the issue of releasing some Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, presumably in exchange for Shalid, but Abbas aids have said in the past that there's only so much that the President can do to work for Shalid's release.
By contrast, Ariel Sharon's government agreed to free 429 Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in 2004 and returned the remains of 59 Lebanese, in exchange for the release of a single Israeli citizen and the bodies of three Israeli dead held in Lebanon.
The FARC is determined to exchange about 60 so-called political prisoners, including Betancourt and three US military contractors, for hundreds of jailed terrorists.
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