ERITREA SUSPECTS RECIPROCITY AT PLAY REGARDING

UNCLAS E F T O USUN NEW YORK 000181

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR IO/UNP; DS/OFM; L/DL

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: OFDP KREC ER UN
SUBJECT: ERITREA SUSPECTS RECIPROCITY AT PLAY REGARDING
PROPERTY PURCHASES


1. This message is sensitive but unclassified. Please
protect accordingly.


2. Eritrean PermRep Ambassador Araya Desta, accompanied by
DepPermRep Tesfa Seyoum, called on USUN Host Country
Minister-Counselor and Deputy on March 6 to discuss his
Mission's long-standing requests to purchase both an official
residence and smaller office space for the Mission's
chancery. Requests to purchase a residence were turned down
by the Office of Foreign Missions in February 2003 and again
in March 2004. Purchase of a smaller amount of office space
(the Mission wants to downsize from their current 9200 square
feet to 6500 square feet) was rejected in June, 2006. None
of the rejections were accompanied by any explanation for the
USG decision.


3. Desta, who has recently returned from consultations in
Asmara, said that he and his government could only assume
that the host country was using the bilateral principle of
reciprocity to justify the rejections. He noted that the
U.S. Embassy in Asmara has asked for land for a new chancery
and wants a 99 year lease. According to Desta, the GOE does
not permit the sale of land even to Eritrean nationals, but
allows them and others to lease land for 33 years at a time.
Such leases are renewable for additional 33 year periods, but
this appears not to be acceptable to the Embassy.


4. Desta and Seyoum both stressed that although reciprocity
is acceptable and understandable in a bilateral context, it
has no place when dealing with missions accredited to
multilateral international organizations such as the UN.
Desta did not specifically quote the 1983 legal opinion
rendered by the UN Legal Counsel on the subject of invoking
reciprocity with regard to property acquisition, but in a
conversation between USUN and Seyoum on the margins of a
March 5 meeting of the UN's Committee on Relations with the
Host Country, it is clear that the Eritreans are aware of it.


5. Host Country Committee Chairman Ambassador Andreas
Mavroyiannis (Cyprus),at a March 5 lunch hosted by Deputy
Assistant Secretary Claude Nebel, also mentioned the Eritrean
complaint and the inappropriateness of using reciprocity in
the UN context. At the respective sessions, both Nebel and
USUN Host Country officers avoided any discussion of
reciprocity with regard to the Eritrean complaint, but agreed
to look into it. Mavroyiannis later noted that he had
persuaded the Eritrean Mission to refrain from raising the
issue at the March 5 Host Country Committee meeting to give
the host country an additional two months to look into a
response until the next meeting, provisionally scheduled for
early May.


6. This message was not cleared by DAS Nebel before his
departure from USUN.

WOLFF