(SBU) DEMARCHE DELIVERED: CWC TECHNICAL CHANGE TO

C O N F I D E N T I A L KUWAIT 001996 SIPDIS STATE FOR T, AC, NEA/ENA, EUR/UBI, EUR/WE, NEA/ARP THE HAGUE FOR CWC DEL, ALSO FOR EMBASSY TEL AVIV FOR DCM LEBARON E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/28/2014 TAGS: PARM PREL LY KU CWC SUBJECT: (SBU) DEMARCHE DELIVERED: CWC TECHNICAL CHANGE TO PERMIT CONVERSION OF LIBYAN FACILITY REF: STATE 136811 Classified By: AMBASSADOR RICHARD JONES; REASON 1.4 (B, D). ¶1. (C) A/DCM joined the British, Italian and Libyan DCMs in delivering reftel demarche June 28 on MFA Acting Director of Legal Affairs Ghanem al-Ghanem. Ghanem promised to contact the Kuwaiti OPCW Executive Council delegation urgently (it had just left for The Hague that morning) and to put the matter to the Undersecretary for decision the same day. A lawyer from the Legal Dept. who sat in on the meeting examined Article XV paragraphs 4 and 5 and offered the opinion that the proposed technical change is fully consistent with those provisions. Nonetheless, given possible objections from France and Germany, we agree with our British and Italian colleagues that it would be useful for USDEL to approach the Kuwaiti delegation directly, as early as possible. ¶2. (C) The British and Italian instructions were identical to ours except that theirs made no mention of including the Libyan embassy in the joint demarche (both were perfectly happy to take our word for it). The Libyan embassy here knew nothing about the issue, let alone the demarche, but after checking with Tripoli, the Libyan DCM (who is primarily the embassy's accountant) did participate. He was concerned that we did not have an Arabic text to present to MFA, and still did not seem fully to grasp the issue (he appeared to believe the "technical change" in question was to the Rabta factory rather than to the CWC's Verification Annex). Nonetheless, all parties appreciated that this joint demarche represented a historic moment in the diplomatic annals of Kuwait. JONES