GEORGIA BORDER MONITORING: AUSTRIAN RESPONSE

C O N F I D E N T I A L VIENNA 000847 SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/CACEN, EUR/RPM, EUR/ERA AND EUR/AGS E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/15/2015 TAGS: PREL ZJ RS GG PBTS AU EUN OSCE SUBJECT: GEORGIA BORDER MONITORING: AUSTRIAN RESPONSE REF: A) STATE 43096 B) VIENNA 792 Classified By: ECONOMIC-POLITICAL COUNSELOR GREGORY E. PHILLIPS FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D) (C) Embassy Vienna conveyed reftel demarche on March 11 to MFA DAS-equivalent for the Former Soviet Union Josef Litschauer, A/S-equivalent for Security Policy Thomas Hajnoczi and Director for EU Common Foreign and Security Policy Andreas Riecken (ref b). We followed up on March 14 with Hajnoczi, whose responsibilities include Austrian peacekeeping deployments abroad. Hajnoczi said he had discussed at length the possibility of an EU-flagged border monitoring mission during a meeting in Washington with EUR/RPM director Daniel Russell the previous week. Hajnoczi thought that the subject had acquired greater urgency in the face of Russian intransigence and would figure prominently in discussions of the EU PSC meeting on March 15. He observed that the Russians' obstruction of a renewed OSCE operation was clearly designed to convey their unhappiness over recent developments in their "near abroad." Brown