Foreign Policy Advisor on Shanghai Cooperation

UNCLAS ULAANBAATAR 000450 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PREL MARR MG UZ CH RU IR SUBJECT: Foreign Policy Advisor on Shanghai Cooperation Organization SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED - NOT FOR INTERNET DISTRIBUTION. ¶1. (SBU) Presidential Foreign Policy Advisor Tsogtbaatar, on his own initiative, met with DCM and SIPDIS Ppoloff to brief on Mongolia's position at the forthcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Shanghai. Tsogtbaatar said President Enkhbayar would depart on June 14 for the summit, but would spend the minimum amount of time there because of the need to return for the visit of Dutch Crown Prince. He said Enkhbayar would have time only for bilaterals with Presidents Putin, Hu Jintao, and Nazarbayev. ¶2. (SBU) Tsogtbaatar said Enkhbayar would use his five5-minute speaking opportunity to describe Mongolia's desire to establish a nuclear free zone, and describe the dangers of proliferation of WMD and of violations of the NPT. Enkhbayar will not use the words "Iran" or "North Korea," but it will be clear that his words are directed at their nuclear quests, Tsogtbaatar said. SIPDIS ¶3. (SBU) DCM noted our desire to avoid a repetition of last year's SCO resolution aimed at the Coalition military presence in Central Asia. Tsogtbaatar replied that Mongolia had not picked up indications of such a resolution. Tsogtbaatar opined that Mongolia sees SCO issues mostly as does the U.S. However, he said, Mongolia sometimes need to consider how it reflects these views. Mongolia has no desire to become an SCO member, he said, and wants to be careful not to give any basis for appeals to become a member, given its apparent interest in security issues. Mongolia's main interest in the SCO would remain economic, he added. ¶4. (SBU) Tsogtbaatar said Mongolia would complain at the summit about the level of information given to observers, which it found insufficient and not really aided by the recent SCO moves to more clearly define the status of "members" and "observers." While Mongolia could often find out relevant information from members, "observer" should entail some better level of information than for SCO nonparticipants, he said. The SCO should not be allowed to just cite the growing number of observers as evidence of SCO's success; there had to be some meaning to observer status. Tsogtbaatar commented that requests to the SCO Secretariat in Beijing for information too often are rebuffed with the statement that the staff is unsure whether this information is releasable to observers. He opined that, to some extent, such replies reflect genuine staff confusion in the Secretariat, but said they also can involve subtle SCO pressure on Mongolia and others to become members. ¶5. (SBU) Tsogtbaatar averred that there is pressure on Mongolia by Russia to become a member over the long- term, with appeals sometimes funneled through Central Asian states. There is also pressure from China, he said, but more indirect. Tsogtbaatar commented that Mongolia was reassured during the recent visit of the Indian Foreign Secretary to hear that India also had no interest in becoming a member, since this would help avoid a sense of momentum for observer-to-member conversions. SLUTZ