RUSSIAN MFA CITES DIP NOTE ON SMUGGLED HEU SAMPLE

S E C R E T MOSCOW 000825 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR ISN/CTR (CURRY),AND EUR/PRA (FRIEDT) E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/27/2017 TAGS: KNNP MNUC ENRG PARM ASEC SUBJECT: RUSSIAN MFA CITES DIP NOTE ON SMUGGLED HEU SAMPLE REF: A. SECSTATE 20742 ¶B. TBILISI 269 ¶C. MOSCOW 461 Classified By: EST Counselor Daniel O'Grady. Reasons: 1.4 (b,d) ¶1. (S) As instructed by REF A, we met February 26 with Mikhail Kondratenkov, of the MFA's Department of Disarmament and Security Affairs (DVBR),and asked him to clarify Moscow's purported request to the Georgian Government for an additional sample of the HEU that was seized in Georgia in February 2006. We underscored that it would be useful to learn when this request had been made, whether it was in writing and what phrasing had been used -- to ensure there was no confusion. Kondratenkov promised to find out the specifics and inform us. ¶2. (S) On February 27 DVBR's Aleksandr Bulychev, who had sat in the meeting, called us to report that the Russian Embassy in Tbilisi had delivered a diplomatic note on the HEU issue to the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on February 13. The diplomatic note had been addressed to A. Torondjadze, in the Department of Global Relations. In the note, the Russian Embassy had requested a sample of "not less than 10 grams" of the smuggled HEU. Bulychev said that the diplomatic note also asked for additional materials to be provided to the Procurator General's office in Russia, in support of a potential criminal case that might be opened here. (NOTE: The Russian press has reported that the smuggling suspect's brother is a high-ranking customs official in North Ossetia, speculating that this could become an investigative trail. END NOTE) BURNS