UAE ACTIONS ON 1737 ENFORCEMENT

C O N F I D E N T I A L ABU DHABI 000302 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE FOR ISN, ISN/CPI, NEA/IR, NEA/ARP TREASURY FOR U/S LEVEY NSC FOR DAVID STEVENS USDOC/BIS FOR WYSONG E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/21/2017 TAGS: PARM ETTC PREL MNUC IR AE SUBJECT: UAE ACTIONS ON 1737 ENFORCEMENT REF: A. STATE 16917 ¶B. STTE 14071 ¶C. ABU DHABI 54 Classified By: Ambassador Michele J. Sison for reasons 1.4 (b, d, and h ). ¶1. (U) This is an action request. Please see para 4. ¶2. (C) On February 19, MFA Acting U/S Tariq Al-Haidan told Ambassador that Director Dubai General Department of State Security (and Chair of the UAE's non proliferation and commodity control committees) BG Mohammed Al-Qamzi had chaired a UNSCR 1737 meeting the day before at the Foreign Ministry. Al-Haidan reported that the resolution had been circulated to the proper authorities and that the UAEG had ordered all relevant authorities to implement UNSCR 1737 and to report on compliance. ¶3. (C) On February 21, Mohammed Al-Mehari, Director General of the UAE's Federal Customs Authority (FCA) told Econchief that the FCA had instructed the customs services in each emirate to enforce the requirements of 1737. Al-Mehari identified the lack of comparability between customs harmonized system codes and the UNSCR control lists as a problem for the UAE customs services. He said that the FCA had approached both the GCC Secretariat (The GCC has a unified customs law) and the UK searching for a way to compare the two lists. He asked if the USG had any information that it could provide to the UAE on the subject. ¶4. (C) Action Request: The upcoming March 1 meeting of the U.S.-UAE Counterproliferation Task Force has a proposed agenda topic of UNSCR 1718 and 1737 implementation. The UAE may raise this issue as a concern. Post recommends that the delegation be prepared to provide the UAEG with any available information on comparing harmonized system codes with the annexes on embargoed goods from UNSCRs 1718 and 1737. End Action Request. SISON