FRANCE CONCERNED AT FATE OF KEY SC PRESIDENCY

C O N F I D E N T I A L PARIS 005108

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/12/2016
TAGS: PREL PHUM UNSC CG FR
SUBJECT: FRANCE CONCERNED AT FATE OF KEY SC PRESIDENCY
DELIVERABLE ON CHILD SOLDIERS

REF: STATE 122441

Classified By: Political Minister Counselor Josiah B. Rosenblatt.
Reasons 1.4b,d


1. (C) Poloff relayed reftel demarche points on July 27 to
MFA IO DAS-Equivalent Jean-Hugues Simon Michel, who expressed
dissatisfaction that USG objections to the draft resolution
would block a key deliverable for the French Security Council
Presidency in July. He stressed that the initiative enjoyed
the direct support of FM Douste-Blazy. Unmoved by arguments
that the USG required more time for interagency review of the
proposed sanctions for the recruitment of Child-Soldiers in
the DRC, Simon Michel countered that the resolution had been
circulating for three weeks. Poloff explained, per reftel,
that the USG would not be able to join consensus on the draft
resolution. Simon Michel said he would confer with
A/S-Equivalent Sylvie Bermann on how to proceed. Simon
Michel said that Nathalie Delapalme, Cabinet Adviser to FM
Douste-Blazy for African and Humanitarian Affairs, had the
MFA lead on the matter.


2. (C) In a follow-up discussion, Delapalme emphasized for
poloff the degree of personal engagement on the part of FM
Douste-Blazy with the issue of Child-Soldiers and the draft
in question. She noted that FM Douste-Blazy had intended to
chair a July SC meeting to address Child-Soldiers until he
was called away by the emergency on Lebanon. Delapalme
commented that she did not understand how the USG could have
substantive objections to the draft resolution, which was
less ambitious in scope, she said, than the 2000 UNGA
Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the
Child that the U.S. Senate had already ratified. The French
draft moreover explicitly aims to target non-state actors,
hence it could not be construed as calling into question the
military practices of member states. Delapalme commented
further that adoption of the draft would constitute an
important message for the DRC at a critical period.


3. (C) Poloff explained that the USG sincerely wanted to
engage with France in its campaign to combat abused related
to Child-Soldiers. The USG required additional time for
interagency review of the draft, given its groundbreaking
introduction of targeted sanctions tied to the issue of
Child-Soldiers. Delapalme expressed bafflement, similar to
Simon Michel, given that the French text had been on the
table for over three weeks. Delapalme said France would like
to find acceptable language for the USG in order to maintain
the sanctions initiative and preserve what FM Douste-Blazy
and Ambassador de La Sabliere viewed as a key deliverable to
the French SC Presidency in July.






Please visit Paris' Classified Website at:
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/paris/index.c fm

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