CROATIA ORGANIZING FOR PSI PARTICIPATION

C O N F I D E N T I A L ZAGREB 001718

SIPDIS


DEPT FOR EUR/SCE - KABUMOTO, NP/RA - SONTAG
DEPT ALSO FOR NP, T, AND L
WARSAW FOR POL/MIL

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/23/2014
TAGS: KNNP MNUC PARM PREL PHSA KTIA HR NATO
SUBJECT: CROATIA ORGANIZING FOR PSI PARTICIPATION

REF: A)ZAGREB 1588 B)STATE 173288

Classified By: Poloff Justin Friedman, reasons 1.4 (b) & (d)

SUMMARY AND COMMENT
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1. (C) Poloff met with MFA Head of Cooperative Security
Section Drazen Hrastic on September 13 to discuss ref B
guidance on how Croatia could enhance its participation in
the Proliferation Security Initiative. The GoC hopes to have
its PSI interagency process and points of contact settled by
the end of this year and would continue to seek guidance from
Poland on this process. Preparations for negotiating a
bilateral shipboarding agreement with the U.S. will, at best,
be completed by the end of this year. The GoC will try to
stress PSI-linked counter-WMD activities in its cooperative
exercises with Adriatic Charter (A3) partners Albania and
Macedonia. We will continue to urge that the GoC get its own
house in order and establish points of contact beyond the MFA
to facilitate Croatia's participation in PSI. END SUMMARY
AND COMMENT.


2. (C) Hrastic elaborated on ref A points that the GoC would
organize its PSI activities as a subset of the work of an
interagency National Commission for WMD and non-proliferation
issues involving representatives from the Ministries of
Foreign Affairs, Interior (police),Defense, Economy (export
control),and Finance (Customs) plus the intelligence
services. The MFA would likely chair the Commission at the
Assistant Minister level or higher. He said that the
Government of Poland would be assisting in creating this
Commission. Subsequently, Polish Embassy counselor Dariusz
Wisniewski told us that PSI cooperation would be one of the
main issues on the Polish agenda for President Mesic's
upcoming visit to Warsaw Sept. 26-27. Wisniewski said that
the Polish Undersecretary of State (no name given) will be
visiting Zagreb in the first week of October in part to
strengthen Polish-Croatian military-to-military and
military-industrial relations, as well as to follow up on PSI
consultations.


3. (C) Hrastic siad that the GoC was just starting to review
the model text for the bilateral shipboarding agreement. He
speculated that it would be difficult to have full
interagency agreement on the text before the end of this
calendar year. Hrastic's personal view was that there would
not be any serious difficulties with any of the main points
in the agreement, but given the number of ministries and
agencies involved, it would take some time to reach internal
consensus. That said, Hrastic was confident that the
agreement had political support, but that the GoC may ask the
U.S. to help lobby to secure parliamentary approval when we
reach that stage.


4. (C) In response to the upcoming schedule of PSI
activities, Hrastic repeated the offer for Croatia to host
some kind of exercise in the future. He said that as the GoC
reviewed options for possible Adriatic Charter (A3)
exercises, most thinking centered on WMD interdiction related
activities which could naturally be of interest for other PSI
participants in the Adriatic and/or Mediterranian region.
This would be an important item for the A3 Foreign Ministers
meeting which Croatia will host in November.

FRANK


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