There are some on the right who won't enter into serious discussions about deficits without preconditions.
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He noted that a key McCain adviser, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, has advocated talks without preconditions.
Mr Netanyahu and the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, both say they are ready to resume talks without preconditions.
Candidate Obama declared last year that he would be willing to sit down with Iran's leader without preconditions.
North Korea has called for the resumption of six-party talks without preconditions before.
And in a bid to jump-start flagging Cyprus talks, Turkey is reportedly ready to discuss land swaps without preconditions.
He has however urged a resumption of negotiations without preconditions, rejecting Palestinian demands for a complete halt to settlement activity first.
Obama caused an uproar when during a Democratic primary debate last spring he said that he would meet with Ahmadinejad without preconditions.
Last week, Iran's nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, sent a letter to the EU's foreign-policy chief, Catherine Ashton, calling for an immediate resumption of talks without preconditions.
Yet it's worth noting that while Mr. Hagel is eager to engage the world's rogues without preconditions, his attitude toward Israel tends, at best, to the paternalistic.
"The only way to resolve all pending issues between Israel and the Palestinians, including the settlements issue, is through direct negotiations without preconditions, " said Yigal Palmor, Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesman.
If Israel wants to end its occupation of south Lebanon, say the Lebanese, it must either risk a unilateral withdrawal without preconditions, or offer the Syrian government inducements to accept a negotiated peace.
As former military leaders and foreign policy officials, we call on the Bush administration to engage immediately in direct talks with the government of Iran without preconditions to help resolve the current crisis in the Middle East and settle differences over the Iranian nuclear program.
Netanyahu says talks should resume without any preconditions, and he has even allowed stepped-up construction in the territories since the United Nations moved to recognize a de facto state of Palestine in November.
Yet many countries have managed the trick without meeting those preconditions, including Japan, Costa Rica and, despite his strictures, India.
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And we need to get to the process of having that conversation without coming with preconditions and lots of statements in advance.
That starts with aggressive, principled diplomacy without self-defeating preconditions, but with a cleareyed understanding of our interests.
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