FRENCH SUPPORT LISTING LTTE BUT WARY OF "TIMING"

C O N F I D E N T I A L PARIS 006442 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/20/2014 TAGS: PGOV KTFN PREL PTER CO FR SUBJECT: FRENCH SUPPORT LISTING LTTE BUT WARY OF "TIMING" REF: STATE 172115 Classified By: POLITICAL MINISTER COUNSELOR JOSIAH ROSENBLATT, FOR REAS ONS 1.4 B/D ¶1. (C) On September 20, we delivered reftel demarche encouraging an EU listing of the LTTE as a terrorist organization to Julien Deruffe, the MFA's senior desk officer for counter-terrorism. Deruffe said the French inter-agency process had concluded that LTTE met EU criteria for being listed as a terrorist organization. Furthermore, he said that the EU process for listing gained steam after the assassination of the Sri Lankan Prime Minister. Nevertheless, the GOF wanted to respect current mediation efforts, said Deruffe, and wanted to make sure that listing LTTE would be a positive step and not one that might harm these efforts. Therefore, it wanted to ensure that any EU listing of LTTE made sense from a standpoint of timing. ¶2. (C) We also delivered reftel demarche to Regis Pelissier, office director for International Finance Systems at the Finance Ministry. Pelissier had no substantive comment. Please visit Paris' Classified Website at: http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/paris/index.c fm STAPLETON