DUTCH MFA ON U.S. AMENDMENTS TO THE SUA

C O N F I D E N T I A L THE HAGUE 000167

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR NP/RA EYTHAN SONTAG, L/NP JULIE HERR, L/LEI
DENISE MANNING

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/23/2015
TAGS: KNNP MNUC PARM PREL KTIA PHSA EWWT NL
SUBJECT: DUTCH MFA ON U.S. AMENDMENTS TO THE SUA

REF: A. STATE 4828

B. DEAN-SONTAG/HERR/MANNING EMAILS 1/21 AND
PREVIOUS (NOTAL)

Classified By: CLASSIFIED BY POLITICAL COUNSELOR ANDREW SCHOFER FOR REA
SONS 1.4 (B AND D)


1. (C) PolMilOff made ref A demarche to MFA Nonproliferation
Affairs Chief Paul Wilke and MFA Deputy Director of Juridical
Affairs Liesbeth Lijnzaad on January 11 and followed up with
Lijnzaad on January 21. As reported preliminarily ref B,
Wilke said that in general, the Netherlands shares U.S.
concerns and wants to see the SUA Convention used as
intended, but suggested there are "legal and political"
complications. Lijnzaad expressed concern about the time
available to have a text ready for the October diplomatic
conference on the SUA. She thought a compromise was possible
on the issue of state vs. non-state actors. However, the
dual-use issue was "extremely complicated" in terms of
linking certain control lists like the Australia Group to the
SUA. This is because not all states party to the SUA are
participants in political arrangements like the AG. Wilke
noted that even if it is possible to get states not party to
the AG and other such lists to agree, a mechanism would be
needed to reflect that the lists are regularly updated or
else they would be frozen in the form that they are appended
to the SUA. Lijnzaad said that another problem was that not
many large registry countries are currently part of the
drafting process.


2. (C) Lijnzaad said she would chair the January 17 EU COMAR
meeting instead of current EU presidency holder Luxembourg as
Luxembourg was not a maritime state. In a January 21
follow-up discussion (also reported preliminarily ref B),
Lijnzaad told PolMilOff that at the COMAR meeting, EU members
did not disagree with the substance of U.S. proposals but
were "quite concerned" at their coming "so late in the
process." Lijnzaad said members were worried that if they
were to reopen the discussion now they could "wind up
nowhere." She opined that the effort would be of limited
utility if it only attracted the support of the PSI partners.
She also noted that her fellow COMAR members were guided in
their views by a certain sympathy for the "incredible" amount
of work that their French colleague had invested in drafting
the current language on Footnote 14 addressing the areas the
U.S. seeks to amend.
SOBEL