Getty/Italy Deadline Update: “Useful Correspondence”

Today is the deadline imposed by Italian Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli for an antiquities agreement with the J. Paul Getty Museum. Failing a settlement, he had threatened the museum with “a full-scale embargo,” which would mean “an end to cultural and scientific collaboration” between Italy and the Getty.
Here’s what Ron Hartwig, the Getty’s vice president for communications, told me yesterday (Monday) about this showdown:
We are having useful correspondence with Minister Rutelli. We are hopeful we will find agreement. This is not the time for further comment.
Meanwhile, Cass Cliatt, media relations manager for Princeton University, told me a few days ago that there was still no final agreement between the university’s museum and Italy in their separate antiquities negotiations. Rutelli publicly (and, it seems, prematurely) announced in New York on June 28 that an agreement with Princeton had been signed.
I assume that the LA Times will be on this case later today. Its art writer, Christopher Knight, recently characterized Rutelli’s campaign against the Getty as “old-fashioned political demagoguery, pitched to voters back home.”
I will update if there is news today from Italy.
UPDATE: No reply yet from Italy to my request for comment, but the important word from the Felcholino duo at the Los Angeles Times is that Italy has, for now, taken the Getty Bronze out of the discussion, making it much easier to find consensus.
Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino report:
A senior Italian official said the culture ministry decided that the fate of the statue should not be negotiated until a new criminal investigation into the statue’s discovery and export from Italy is complete.