Argentina said it’s willing to begin negotiating next year to settle a legal dispute with holdout creditors from the 2001 default that drove the country into nonpayment of its debt in July.

Cabinet Chief Jorge Capitanich said Friday that Argentina would negotiate in the first quarter of 2015 if a New York court grants a stay of execution on a ruling ordering the country to pay the litigants in full when it compensates holders of restructured bonds. Argentina defaulted for a second time in 13 years on July 30 after U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa blocked an interest payment because Argentina refused to abide by the ruling.

“An application of a stay, that is a suspension of the ruling, is clearly necessary to establish conditions for negotiation from the first quarter of next year with all creditors that haven’t taken part in the exchange,” Cabinet Chief Jorge Capitanich said in his daily press conference.

The statement marked the first time Argentina indicated it would negotiate once a Rights Upon Future Offers clause expires in rules governing restructured bonds, obliging Argentina to offer creditors that accepted 30 cents on the dollar in 2005 and 2010 the same terms as any improved offer.

President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has argued that paying holdout creditors led by billionaire Paul Singer’s Elliott Management Corp. an estimated $1.6 billion would trigger further claims of as much as $120 billion.

Bond prices have held above their five-year average on speculation that Fernandez or her successor will eventually settle with the holdouts, paving the way for a re-entry into international debt markets.

Argentina’s bonds due in 2033 dropped 0.14 cent to 86.72 cents on dollar, with the yield rising three basis points, or 0.03 percentage point, to 10.37 percent.