ROKG SUPPORTIVE OF US POSITION ON CLUSTER MUNITIONS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SEOUL 000219 SIPDIS SIPDIS LCC SEOUL SEOUL KOREA PLEASE PASS TO J2, J5 AND SCJS E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/23/2017 TAGS: MOPS PARM PREL KS SUBJECT: ROKG SUPPORTIVE OF US POSITION ON CLUSTER MUNITIONS REF: SECSTATE 6667 Classified By: A/DCM Joseph Y. Yun. Reasons 1.4 (b,d). ¶1. (U) This is an action request. Please see para 4. ¶2. (C) On January 23, Poloff delivered reftel demarche to Kim Hye-jin of the Disarmament and Nonproliferation Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT). Kim said that the Republic of Korea (ROK) agreed that any discussions about restricting cluster munitions (CM) should be carried out through the already-established Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) framework. While emphasizing that ROKG interagency discussions are ongoing, Kim said that both MOFAT and the Ministry of National Defense are very worried that a CM ban would negatively impact military defense capabilities and would be costly to implement. Kim said that the ROKG would welcome future military-to-military discussions on CM. ¶3. (C) Kim confirmed that the ROKG had not been invited to attend the February Oslo conference, but that the Government of Norway had offered the ROKG an observer seat. Kim said that the ROKG is considering attending because they are concerned that the CM issue will be co-opted just as the landmine issue was in the Ottawa process. However, Kim indicated that the ROKG does not wish to be the only non-participating attendee and is concerned that ROKG presence could be incorrectly interpreted as support for the goals of the Oslo conference. In particular, Kim said that the ROKG decision to send an observer will depend heavily on whether the United States and other countries such as Japan attend, and noted that a ROK-Japan-U.S.-Finland meeting about the Oslo CM conference was planned for later this week in Geneva. ¶4. (C) Action Request: Post requests that Department provide a list of countries that plan to attend the Oslo conference as participants and as observers to share with the ROKG as soon as available. End Action Request. STANTON