CHEMICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION (CWC): WRAP-UP FOR

UNCLAS THE HAGUE 001273 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE FOR ISN/CB, VCI/CCB, L/ACV, IO/S SECDEF FOR OSD/ISP JOINT STAFF FOR DD PMA-A FOR WTC COMMERCE FOR BIS (GOLDMAN) NSC FOR DICASAGRANDE WINPAC FOR WALTER E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PARM PREL CWC SUBJECT: CHEMICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION (CWC): WRAP-UP FOR WEEK ENDING JUNE 2 This is CWC-47-06. -------------- ARTICLE VII -------------- ¶1. (U) A WEOG meeting was held on May 29, despite it being a U.S. holiday. As the focus was the Article VII experience from EC-45, Betsy Sanders attended. Facilitator Amb. Maartin Lak (Netherlands) was furious about the failure of the report language during the EC and implied that it was the fault of the U.S. Many delegations were concerned about the NAM making its voice heard in informal, as well as formal, consultations. It was widely intimated by delegations that there is now a strong linkage between Article VII and U.S. CW destruction, with several insisting that the U.S. change its Article VII tactics because they see us in a vulnerable position. ¶2. (U) Amb. Javits and other members of the delegation met with Lak later in the week. Lak's anger had subsided and the meeting was very constructive. The delegation stressed what could be learned to improve the managing the process for EC-46 -- early draft report language, ensuring that all delegations have the same text to work from, etc. Lak stated that the June 8 facilitation would be centered on the next Technical Secretariat draft progress report, with the June 15 and 29 meetings devoted to report language. A few days later, Lak provided the del with an advance copy of his talking points for the June 8 meeting. These points include: starting afresh, a report on his participation in the NAs meeting in Mexico City, TS draft report, EC-46, and next steps. He states that he sees the outcome of EC-46 being an outline of States Parties needs, identifying where it appears that progress is not being made, where we are confident actions are maintaining forward progress, and special cases where a special attitude may be necessary. -------------- RE-EXAMINING TENURE -------------- ¶3. (U) Del rep met with former Senior Planning Officer Ralf Trapp on May 31. Trapp has been commissioned by the Director General to do a study of the tenure policy and its implementation. He returned to the OPCW last week to give the DG a rough draft of his report on tenure implementation and to seek feedback on his draft from department heads within the TS. Trapp implied that his report will advocate some flexibility in the implementation of tenure for certain selected positions and said he was concerned about the potential erosion of technical skills in the TS in the near future if some modifications to tenure were not considered. One TS staff member who had seen the rough draft told del rep that the document was very critical of the TS's tenure implementation efforts to date. Trapp said he will provide the final report to the DG by the end of June and the DG would then consider releasing it as is as a DG note, or possibly rewriting parts of it and releasing it in some other form. -------------- SEARCH FOR A NEW WEOG COORDINATOR -------------- ¶4. (U) WEOG coordinator Ruth Flint (Switzerland) told del rep last week that she had been named Ambassador to an unnamed country and will be leaving at the end of July. She plans on running the WEOG meetings through EC-46. Several WEOG delegations have informally mentioned Spanish delegate Tomas Lopez Vilarino as a possible successor to Flint. It is not yet clear if Vilarino is interested in the position. -------------- OCPF SITE SELECTION -------------- ¶5. (U) On May 30, the facilitator for OCPF site selection called a meeting of a small number of delegations - U.S., Germany, Japan, France (UK was not able to attend) - to discussion a possible new way to make SP proposals (nominations) that might be more acceptable to those delegations that consider geographical proposals unacceptable because of supposed political implications. The paper from the meeting (which has been forwarded to ISN/CB and TCD) is based on a proposal some time ago from Pakistan that would see SPs making nominations from a list of all OCPF plant sites. The goal of this concept would be to decrease the complexity of the facilitator's proposal and minimize the concerns surrounding collusion. -------------- FINANCIAL RULES -------------- ¶6. (U) A short consultation was held on June 1. The Facilitator (Rick Snelsire, U.S.) had met with interested delegations (Iran, India, France, Germany) prior to the meeting to see if they reach an agreement on the three outstanding issues related to the draft financial rules. Two of the three issues were resolved and the only outstanding issue is the procurement related amendments supported by India and Iran. Germany and France agreed to accept the original amendments proposed by India and Iran provided the word "all" was deleted from the amended language. India and Iran agreed to check with their capitals to see if this would be acceptable. ¶7. (U) The only other topic discussed at the consultation was a housekeeping item brought up by the TS in regards to the terminology, to change "budget section" to "budget sub-programme," which would be consistent with the financial regulations. As if to illustrate why the change in terminology was needed, Iran and India both questioned how this would affect the current operation of the budget section and asked if it was being eliminated. The facilitator indicated he would schedule the next consultation after he had a response from the above delegations on the proposed amended text. -------------- ARTICLE X -------------- ¶8. (U) Consultations on May 28 were a re-hash of the meeting held on May 12, which was a briefing on Joint Assistance Exercise 2005 in L'viv, Ukraine. Iran still seems annoyed NATO was involved in the exercise. India, Pakistan and Iran wanted to know the benefits of the exercise versus the cost. All three wanted more "details" of what the exercise was like: what happened, where, when, why and how -- but did not show up at the May 12 meeting where all was explained by various participants, including the French representative. Those three were also concerned why there were only two States Parties on the evaluation team. U.S. del rep brought up the notes the TS sent inviting observers and questioned whether a similar note had been sent for evaluators. The TS said no, but Italy responded that it had been discussed in planning meetings and SPs were well aware they could request adding evaluators from their country to the exercise. Canada suggested it would be a good idea to have similar exercises in other regions of the world. France said they will have the presentation made by their participant available to delegations soon. The next meeting, on June 8, will discuss other Article X issues. ¶9. (U) Javits sends. ARNALL