SANCTIONS: LICENSING DELAYS FOR AVIATION SAFETY

UNCLAS DAMASCUS 006684

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

NEA/ELA
NSC FOR ABRAMS/DORAN/SINGH
TREASURY FOR GLASER/LEBENSON
EB/ESC/TFS FOR SALOOM

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: EAIR ECON ETTC SY SANC
SUBJECT: SANCTIONS: LICENSING DELAYS FOR AVIATION SAFETY
PARTS GETS RENEWED ATTENTION

REF: DAMASCUS 4822


1. (U) On December 26, Syrian Arab Airlines began executing
its plan to ferry, in tandem with Saudi Airlines, some 25,000
Syrian Hajj participants to Jidda and Medina. At the same
time, a reporter for as-Sharq al-Awsat approached us on a
story she is researching on the adverse effect US trade
sanctions are having on the safety of the Syrian airline.
Articles with similar story lines appeared in both local and
international press last month. In an interview published
both locally and in regional media, the director general of
Syrian Arab Airlines, Nashaat Numir, commented that licenses
for spare parts, which previously were processed in weeks,
now take months or are even sometimes returned without
action. In his interview, Numir asserted that he was working
with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to
get the organization to intercede with the appropriate USG
authorities to help resolve the issue.


2. (SBU) Numir expanded on the same theme in a meeting with
us. He complained that licensing for aviation spare parts
had slowed down significantly recently. He told us that he
was most concerned with two licenses for parts that are new
ICAO safety requirements: a GPS system and an Enhanced Ground
Proximity Warning System. Numir commented that because ICAO
mandated the parts in 2004 and Syrian Arab Airlines has still
not been able to acquire them, he wrote a letter to ICAO
recently to explain his company,s difficulty in complying
with international safety standards and to solicit the
organization,s assistance in resolving the issue. According
to Numir, managers at the Syrian Arab Airlines try to
compensate for the slow processing of spare parts licenses by
trying to anticipate all parts needed well in advance, but as
in the two examples above, that is not always possible.


3. (SBU) Comment. The SARG seeks opportunities to portray
US sanctions as intended to target the average Syrian.
Issues like aviation safety parts and medical spare parts
(reftel) strengthen the SARG,s otherwise weak hand. A
waiver does exist for parts needed for aviation safety under
both the Syrian Accountability Act (SAA) and the Export
Administration Act. Expeditiously processing these requests
would increase the effectiveness of sanctions by reducing
their unintended negative consequences, and strengthen our
own argument that sanctions target the Syrian regime and its
policies that destabilize the region, and are not intended to
hurt or endanger the average citizen.
SECHE