GREECE ONBOARD WITH U.S. ON CLUSTER MUNITIONS

C O N F I D E N T I A L ATHENS 000441 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/01/2017 TAGS: PARM PREL MOPS NATO GR SUBJECT: GREECE ONBOARD WITH U.S. ON CLUSTER MUNITIONS REF: A. SECSTATE 20863 ¶B. SECSTATE 6667 Classified By: DEPUTY POLCOUNS PAUL CARTER. REASONS 1.4 (B) and (D). ¶1. (C) On March 1, Poloff raised ref a points with MFA D1 Directorate for International Organizations and Nonproliferation officer Dionyssios A. Kyvetos. Kyvetos confirmed that Greece had not been invited to, nor did it send any officials to participate in, the February 22-23 Oslo cluster munitions conference. Reiterating his position from an earlier discussion on ref b points, Kyvetos said Greece agreed with the U.S. position that favored dealing with cluster munitions within the framework of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) and not at a separate, non-binding conference such as the one held in Oslo. Kyvetos was somewhat surprised and disappointed that certain nations, such as the UK, Japan, and France, who he claimed in November 2006 had been opposed to a separate conference dealing with cluster munitions, in the end signed the joint statement at the conclusion of the February Oslo conference. RIES