GUAM: Azerbaijan Remains the Dissenting Voice on a

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