UNCLAS KIEV 001025

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PREL KDEM ENRG GUAM
SUBJECT: GUAM: Azerbaijan Remains the Dissenting Voice on a
New GUAM Charter

Ref A: Kiev 988 Ref B: Kiev 574 Ref C: State 36540

(U) Sensitive but unclassified. Not for Internet
distribution. Please handle accordingly.


1. (SBU) On March 15, Yevhen Koziy, Executive Director of
the GUAM Information Office, informed INLOff that experts
from GUAM member states (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan,
Moldova), and not the National Coordinators (NCs) as stated
in ref A, participated in the March 13-14 meeting in Kiev
to finalize the new Charter for GUAM. The meeting
succeeded, he said, in resolving all substantive issues
except for how the organization's new decision making
structures should look and function. Azerbaijan continued
to hold the dissenting view (ref B). Koziy believed the
NCs would meet within two weeks to resolve the remaining
"political" issue.


2. (SBU) Koziy confirmed that the draft Charter included a
commitment to expand the current GUAM Information Center to
a Secretariat. Regarding funding for the current
Information Center, despite ref C demarche, Ukraine
continued to be the only member of the four countries to
have paid its 2005 dues to the Information Center.


3. (SBU) On March 14, Koziy said, he had signed a contract
for the design of the GUAM web page with the same web site
design company that had produced the web sites for the MFA
and National Security and Defense Council.

Gwaltney