FRENCH UPDATE ON CENTRAL ASIAN NUCLEAR-WEAPON-FREE

C O N F I D E N T I A L PARIS 005667 SIPDIS DEPT FOR ISN/MNSA; GENEVA FOR CD AND USUN FOR POL E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/25/2016 TAGS: PARM KNNP MARR PREL UN FR SUBJECT: FRENCH UPDATE ON CENTRAL ASIAN NUCLEAR-WEAPON-FREE ZONE DEMARCHES REF: STATE 139268 Classified By: Charge d'Affaires, a.i. Josiah Rosenblatt, Reason 1.4 B/ D ¶1. (C) On August 24, we delivered reftel demarche to Arnaud Mentre, MFA nonproliferation officer responsible for the Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone (CANWFZ) issue. Mentre responded that France was involved in three demarches, either underway or planned, on CANWFZ: -- Today, on August 24 at 17:00 in Paris and 16:00 in London, the French and the British MFAs plan to call in representatives from Central Asian embassies to obtain an explanation of their planned CANWFZ, while referring them to the text agreed among the UK, France and the U.S. In Paris, the Director for Strategic Affairs plans to meet with the CDAs of the Kazhak and Turkmeni embassies and an as-yet-unknown official from the Uzbek embassy. According to Mentre, the MFA understood from ISN that Washington would also make a similar demarche with Washington-based Central Asian embassies. ¶2. (C) Mentre said agreement had been reached in New York on a planned second, joint demarche to be made, in principle, by France, the UK and the U.S. with UN Deputy Secretary-general Mark Brown on the CANWFZ. He noted, however, that France understood the U.S. might choose to make its own demarche, as it also had other issues to raise with Brown. ¶3. (C) Lastly, the MFA is awaiting confirmation from its mission in New York on whether the U.S., France, and the UK have agreed on a third joint demarche to be made to the Chinese and Russian missions next week. The objective would be to see whether the Russians and Chinese agree with our (U.S./France/UK) proposed text and whether they would agree to a joint P-5 demarche in Central Asian capitals. Please visit Paris' Classified Website at: http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/paris/index.c fm Rosenblatt