1540 COMMITTEE: OUTREACH, BRIEFING FOR REGIONAL

UNCLAS USUN NEW YORK 001071 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: UNSC PREL AORC KPAO PTER KNNP SUBJECT: 1540 COMMITTEE: OUTREACH, BRIEFING FOR REGIONAL GROUPS AND THEMATIC DISCUSSION REF: USUN 1037 ¶1. SUMMARY: On November 21, the Security Council's 1540 Committee reviewed outreach activities, discussed briefing the UN's regional groups on the Committee's letter to states transmitting its implementation matrices and seeking information on states' implementation of resolution 1540, and continued its discussion of devoting a Committee meeting to the issue of biosafety and biosecurity. END SUMMARY. ¶2. The Chairman said he was reaching out to the UN's regional groups regarding the timing of a Committee briefing to clarify questions on the Committee's letter requesting information from States and transmitting the implementation matrices (reftel). ¶3. The members of the Committee's experts' panel also briefed members on recent outreach activities. These events included the September 25-27 "common strategy" workshop in Dakar to help states with their reporting to the 1540 Committee, the Counter-Terrorism Committee, and the 1267 Committee (organized by the three committees' experts' bodies and the UN Office of Drugs and Crime); the October 16-17 seminar in Kyrgyzstan (organized by the Monterey Institute); and the October 29-30 meeting with regional organizations in Nairobi (organized by CTED). The panel coordinator praised the experts' collaboration with UNODC on the Dakar workshop and the November 29-30 workshop in Botswana and recommended the Committee invite UNODC to brief it, with a view to strengthening cooperation between the two bodies. USUN expressed concern that UNODC seemed to be taking the lead on some issues, such as in procuring an expert to assist the Caribbean states in reporting to the 1540 Committee, the CTC, and the 1267 Committee, on which the Council's expert bodies should be leading. The experts responded that they were coordinating effectively with UNODC and thought its work to promote states' reporting to the Committee, the CTC, and the 1267 Committee fell within its mandate. (Comment: USUN has followed up with the experts to stress that UNODC's mandate is limited to providing legislative assistance to enable states to become parties to the international conventions and protocols relating to terrorism. Department may want to consider additional follow up with UNODC in Vienna since the 1540 experts advised that their understanding about UNODC's mandate came from UNODC. End Comment.) USUN also asked experts to make their outreach reports to the Committee available to workshop participants and States through the 1540 website and other means, as appropriate. ¶4. Russia and China then provided preliminary critiques of the experts' panel's proposal for the Committee to hold a substantive debate on the topics of biosafety and biosecurity. Russia expressed concern that aspects of the proposal addressed state proliferation of biological weapons and thus fell outside the Committee's mandate. Any discussion of biosafety and biosecurity, Russia said, should concern only proliferation by non-state actors. (Comment: Russia's comments reflected its consistent position that resolution 1540 addresses only proliferation by non-state actors. End Comment.) China expressed concern that the technical complexity of the topics went beyond the level of expertise of China's diplomats in New York. The Chairman said his hope was for a discussion that would help define the Committee's role concerning these issues and help clarify how the Committee should treat these subjects in its April 2008 report to the Security Council pursuant to resolution 1673 (2006). He did not expect a highly technical discussion. In response to Russia and China, France said it did not agree with ruling out certain topics before the Committee's thematic discussion had even started. ¶5. The Chairman asked the panel of experts to summarize the current views of members on biosafety and biosecurity and prepare a background paper by the end of the month that members can use to seek input from capitals. The Chairman tentatively scheduled the Committee's thematic discussion of biosafety and biosecurity for December 18. ¶6. The next 1540 Committee meeting will likely take place during the first week of December. Khalilzad