Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
05PARIS1528
2005-03-08 18:00:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Paris
Cable title:  

MFA SAYS FRANCE-GERMANY-RUSSIA-SPAIN MARCH 18

Tags:  PREL PGOV FR RU 
pdf how-to read a cable
This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
C O N F I D E N T I A L PARIS 001528 

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/08/2015
TAGS: PREL PGOV FR RU
SUBJECT: MFA SAYS FRANCE-GERMANY-RUSSIA-SPAIN MARCH 18
MEETING IS "FOLLOW UP" TO SOCHI


Classified By: POLITICAL MINISTER-COUNSELOR JOSIAH ROSENBLATT, FOR REAS
ONS 1.4 B/D

C O N F I D E N T I A L PARIS 001528

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/08/2015
TAGS: PREL PGOV FR RU
SUBJECT: MFA SAYS FRANCE-GERMANY-RUSSIA-SPAIN MARCH 18
MEETING IS "FOLLOW UP" TO SOCHI


Classified By: POLITICAL MINISTER-COUNSELOR JOSIAH ROSENBLATT, FOR REAS
ONS 1.4 B/D


1. (C) During a March 8 meeting with Jean-Francois Terral,
the MFA's A/S-equivalent for Russia, the former Soviet space
and the Balkans, POL M/C raised news of a March 18 meeting in
Paris of the French, German, Russian and Spanish leaders.
Terral said the meeting should be viewed in the context of
the September 2004 Chirac-Schroeder-Putin meeting in Sochi,
where leaders of the three countries decided to continue
meeting in such a format. When asked why Spain was then
included, Terral said he had no idea, and speculated that
President Chirac and Chancellor Schroeder had decided "it was
a good idea." Terral said the March 18 meeting would be very
informal and that he did not expect the MFA to receive
substantive readouts.


2. (C) Terral said he understood USG uneasiness regarding the
meeting given the history leading up to the Iraq conflict,
but told POL M/C that "the U.S. shouldn't worry." He said
his office had been tasked to draw up papers on the Balkans,
especially Kosovo and EU-Russian relations, and he assumed
other international issues, such as Afghanistan, Iraq and the
Middle East peace process, would be discussed. Terral
believed that EU-Russian relations would be discussed in the
context of the upcoming EU-Russia meeting in early May. It
was important to have essentially concluded negotiations on
the "four spaces" of common EU-Russia cooperation before the
May meeting, Terral said.
Leach