UN/COUNTERTERRORISM: 1267, CTC, AND 1540 COMMITTEE

UNCLAS USUN NEW YORK 001137

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

FOR IO/PSC: BFITZGERALD

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PREL UNSC ETTC PGOV PTER
SUBJECT: UN/COUNTERTERRORISM: 1267, CTC, AND 1540 COMMITTEE
CHAIRS BRIEF SECURITY COUNCIL IN PUBLIC SESSION

REF: 2006 USUN 375


1. SUMMARY: The Chairs of the UN Security Council's three
subsidiary counterterrorism committees (the Counter-Terrorism
Committee (CTC),the 1267 or Al-Qaida/ Taliban Sanctions
Committee, and the 1540 Committee on nonproliferation)

briefed the Council for the fifth time on their committees'
accomplishments, challenges, priorities, and future plans on
May 30, 2006. Support for enhancing cross-committee
cooperation, protecting individuals' "due process" in listing
and de-listing and human rights more generally in countering
terrorism, alleviating reporting fatigue, and concluding work
on a UN counterterrorism strategy were common themes.


2. All Council members spoke, after which nine non-Council
Member States intervened. Non-Council members' statements
were marked by a clash among Israel, Iran, and Syria in which
the three states exchanged recriminations. As they have done
in previous counterterrorism briefings, Cuba and Venezuela
accused the United States of committing acts of state
terrorism, including by failing to extradite Luis Posada
Carriles. Each Chair's briefing and the individual country
statements, as available, have been sent electronically to
IO/PSC. END SUMMARY.


3. The 1267, Counter-Terrorism, and 1540 Committee Chairs
briefed the Security Council in a public meeting on May 30,

2006. The 1267 Chair, Argentinean PermRep Cesar Mayoral,
highlighted 1267 Committee's achievements by reflecting on
the Committee's recent state visits, including the April 28 -
May 8 visits to Qatar, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia. Mayoral also
said the Committee benefited from efforts of Sweden,
Switzerland, and Germany on how to improve targeted
sanctions, including the Brown University Watson Institute's
study on the legal and political challenges facing persons
the Committee designates, and would continue to focus on
revising its procedures for adding and removing individuals
and entities from its Consolidated List. The Committee also
would focus on issues such as further improving the
completeness and accuracy of the Consolidated List,
completing its review of the Monitoring Team's fourth report
and submitting its views on the report to the Council, and
reviewing the Monitoring Team's report on the effectiveness
of its checklist for assessing states' implementation of the
sanctions regime.


4. CTC Chair and Danish PermRep Ellen Margrethe Loj said the
CTC concentrated recently on revising its reporting regime,
enhancing dialogue with Member States needing technical
assistance, and deepening its relations with international,
regional, and sub-regional organizations. Among other
things, Loj highlighted the importance of continued CTC state
visits, such as the recent visit to the former Yugoslav
Republic of Macedonia. She also emphasized that the
Committee has begun strengthening its relationship with
several African organizations and CARICOM, and is preparing
its fifth Special Meeting with international, regional and
sub-regional organizations.


5. Slovak PermRep and 1540 Committee Chairman Peter Burian
discussed the Council's unanimous adoption of resolution
1673, extending the Committee's mandate, and the Council's
April 27 review of the Committee's report to the Council.
During its new mandate, Burian said the Committee's top
priorities would include facilitating reporting and
conducting outreach to promote states' reporting and
implementation of resolution 1540. Burian announced that the
Committee would help states that had not yet done so to
prepare their first reports to the Committee. He also
highlighted the Committee's intention to hold regional
seminars in the second half of the year in China, Ghana, and
Peru. Burian also announced that the Committee published an
legislative database on its website to provide information on
states' laws, regulations, and other measures relating to the
implementation of 1540 implementation.

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Cooperation among the Committees
--------------


6. All three Chairmen stressed the need for the Committees
to continue to work together to maximize synergies and
avoiding duplication of efforts. In particular, all three
Chairs said they would continue cooperating in to identify
ways to facilitate reporting of non- and late-submitting
states.




7. Many delegations, including China, Japan, the Russian
Federation, Congo-Brazzaville, and the United States, as well
as non-Council members Austria, speaking on behalf of the
European Union, and Ukraine, speaking on behalf of Georgia,
Azerbaijan, and Moldova, stressed the need to strengthen
cooperation among the three committees. Japan and the EU,
like the United States, called for the CTC and 1267 Committee
to conduct joint visits. Japan and China also both advocated
consolidating the three committees' reporting requests to
ease burdens on states and make the committees more
efficient. Japan specifically encouraged the three
committees' experts to consolidate into a single
questionnaire the questions states must answer to provide
information to the committees. Finally, the Russian
delegation supported the 1540 Committee's efforts to use CTED
and the 1267 Monitoring Team's state visits to explain the
importance of timely reporting to states.

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1267 Committee - "Due Process"
--------------


8. In commenting on the 1267 Committee's work, most
delegations focused on the Committee's listing and delisting
procedures. CTC Chair Loj took the unusual step of speaking
in her national capacity to underscore the importance Denmark
placed on the issue of ensuring "due process" guarantees in
those procedures. She then reiterated Denmark's call for the
Committee to establish an independent review mechanism to
which listed individuals and entities would have direct
access. Several other countries (Greece, Qatar, France, and
Peru, as well as non-Council members Austria, Liechtenstein,
and Switzerland) also called for the Committee to revise its
procedures to protect individual rights and provide greater
transparency. France stressed that "sanctions are an
essential instrument" and urged that a focal point be set up
within the Secretariat to receive listed individuals'
requests for delisting or exemption from the sanctions. That
focal point would transmit requests to the Committee and
inform individuals of the response to their requests, France
said. The UK called on the Committee to "maintain progress"
in listing and delisting and said the study prepared by Brown
University's Watson Institute for Germany, Switzerland, and
Sweden "should inform the Committee's decisions."


9. In their interventions, the United States, Russia, and
Japan all stressed the need to enhance states' implementation
of the sanctions regime. Calling the 1267 Committee "one of
the Security Council's most effective bodies," Russia
stressed the need to enhance national procedures for placing
new names on the Committee's Consolidated List. Improving
national processes is "essential to the success of common
efforts to counter a true and changing threat," Russia
argued. Amb. Sanders announced that the United States had
provided a comprehensive package of recommendations
concerning listing and delisting, reflecting the U.S.
commitment to fairness and transparency in the Committee's
work.

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Counter-Terrorism Committee
--------------


10. Many Council members welcomed the CTC's work to
facilitate the delivery of technical assistance to states
that need it. The UK said the CTC has an "essential role" in
promoting bilateral and multilateral assistance that
ultimately will steer all states to full implementation of
resolution 1373. Japan announced that it has established a
new funding facility to provide approximately $70 million in
assistance for counterterrorism and security. As it does
frequently in the CTC and elsewhere, Japan said it expects
closer cooperation between the Counter-Terrorism Committee's
Executive Directorate (CTED) and the G8's Counter-Terrorism
Action Group.


11. The U.S. and France both stressed the need for states to
comply with their obligations under resolution 1373. If
states have received technical assistance but still have not
met their obligations, Ambassador Sanders said, the CTC must
take action to ensure that they do so. French PermRep de La
Sabliere said the CTC must consider new ways of responding to
states that do not implement resolution 1373, echoing the
Secretary-General's recommendation that the Council must

SIPDIS
define parameters for distinguishing between states that lack


capacity and states that have the means but lack the will.
The Council must be firm with the latter, he said.


12. Congo-Brazzaville, the United States, and China also
referred to the CTC's work relating to best practices.
Notably, China said the CTC should disseminate the "relevant"
Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standards and called for
increasing developing countries' representation in FATF to
enable those countries to play a greater counterterrorism
role. (Comment: China's comments might not represent a
policy shift; it has always supported the CTC's adoption of
the FATF's nine special recommendations on terrorism but not
the FATF's 40 recommendations on anti-money laundering. End
comment.)


13. The UK, Qatar, and China also urged the CTC to focus on
states' implementation of resolution 1624 (2005). The UK
announced it had recently submitted its 1624 report to the
CTC and called upon other states to do so soon. China
pointed to the CTC's September 2006 deadline for reporting to
the Council on states' implementation of resolution 1624 and
said the CTC should "speed up" its work relating to
resolution 1624. Arguing that "radicalism must be combated
by creating societies free from hatred and extremism," Qatar
called upon the CTC to focus on the continuing need for
international dialogue and cooperation, as resolution 1624
stresses.


14. Moving beyond the discussion of "due process" in
connection with the 1267 sanctions regime, Peru, Greece,
Austria, and Qatar all stressed the need for respecting human
rights in fighting terrorism. As it did at the Council's
previous public briefing on counterterrorism, Austria again
called for the CTC to intensify its efforts to mainstream
human rights throughout all of its work. Qatar called
safeguarding human rights "the most important aspect of
combating terrorism," and Greece welcomed the CTC's adoption
of a policy on human rights.

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1540 Committee
--------------


15. Many members expressed support for the recent adoption
of resolution 1673 (2006),extending the 1540 Committee's
mandate for two years. France called resolution 1540 (2004)
"the only multilateral tool for comprehensively dealing with
the triple threat of the proliferation of WMD, their means of
delivery, and related materials." Most members called for
the Committee to enhance states' implementation of resolution
1540 through multiple means, including facilitation of
technical assistance and outreach activities. Greece
expressed hope that the upcoming SIPRI donors' conference in
Geneva would achieve results, and Austria announced that the
EU would support the China, Ghana, and Peru seminars.

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UN Counter-Terrorism Strategy and Terrorism Generally
-------------- --------------


16. The UK, Austria, Qatar, Israel, and Greece also urged
the United Nations to adopt a counterterrorism strategy, and
various delegations made general comments on terrorism. The
UK supported the operational focus of the Secretary-General's
recommendations on a counterterrorism strategy and hoped all
UN members could agree upon a strategy. Qatar also said the
UN should have a comprehensive strategy for combating
terrorism. Austria said the UN's counterterrorism strategy
should be operational and action-oriented and involve states,
civil society, and all other relevant actors. China
cautioned that the UN and states should avoid "double
standards" in fighting terrorism and argued that states must
not respond only to terrorist acts that threaten themselves.
China also announced it had ratified the International
Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism
(1999).

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Israel, Iran, and Syria Trade Accusations
--------------


17. At the end of the session, Israel sparred with Iran and
Syria, with the three states trading recriminations. Israel
called terrorism "the Third World War" and said the world is
divided between those who join the fight against terror and
those who do not, including some members of the Council who
E


do not condemn terrorism unequivocally. It also described
the "dark cloud hanging over the Middle East and the world,"
calling Iran "the largest threat to international security"
and accusing Syria of hosting terrorist organizations. Syria
and Iran both defended their efforts to counter terrorism,
with Syria citing FATF's satisfaction with Syria's work to
implement the FATF guidelines. Iran pointed to the terrorist
attacks it has suffered and accused the allied forces in Iraq
of harboring Mujahideen-e-Khalq. Iran also called on the
international community to pay closer attention to the nexus
between drug trafficking and terrorism.
BOLTON