ARGENTINA WILL NOT SUPPORT VENEZUELAN CHANGES TO

C O N F I D E N T I A L BUENOS AIRES 000660 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/20/2016 TAGS: PTER PREL OAS PARM AR VE SUBJECT: ARGENTINA WILL NOT SUPPORT VENEZUELAN CHANGES TO DRAFT DECLARATION OF SAN CARLOS REF: STATE 40856 Classified By: AMB Lino Gutierrez, for Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (C) On March 20, POLOFF delivered talking points (REFTEL) to Ambassador Victor Beauge and Deputy Director Gustavo Urrutia of the Office of Counter Terrorism and Related Crimes. Mr. Urrutia will head the Argentine delegation at the CICTE meeting in Colombia on March 22-24. ¶2. (C) Beauge and Urrutia both said that they did not support the changes proposed by Venezuela to the Draft Declaration of San Carlos which remove references to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1540. Beauge said that UNSC resolutions were non-negotiable, obligatory, and that there was no option to modify them. ¶3. (C) POLOFF asked if Argentina would explicitly support UNSCR 1540 at the Bogota meeting. They replied that although they did not know Venezuela's grounds or their specific argument for the changes, they told POLOFF they saw no reason why Argentina would not support a reference to UNSCR 1540 in the Declaration of San Carlos. Urrutia said it would make the document stronger and more coherent to include the reference to UNSC Resolution 1540. LLORENS