JORDAN NOT YET PREPARED TO DISCUSS HCA ON CWC; MFA

C O N F I D E N T I A L AMMAN 000998 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR ISN/CB DANDREA AND NEA/ELA E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/03/2018 TAGS: MARR MASS MOPS JO KTIA SUBJECT: JORDAN NOT YET PREPARED TO DISCUSS HCA ON CWC; MFA SUGGESTS U.S. TEAM COME TO JORDAN REF: A. STATE 28844 ¶B. 07 AMMAN 4219 Classified By: Ambassador David Hale for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. (C) Poloff delivered Ref A demarche to Khaled Takhayneh, head of the Foreign Ministry's Disarmament Section. Takhayneh indicated on April 3 that the delegation to the CWC Second Review Conference starting on April 7 would be Jordan's Ambassador to the Hague, Ahmad al-Hasan. However, Hasan would not be in a position to effectively discuss the MOU with the U.S. technical experts. Takhayneh, to whom we had delivered the revised draft MOU on the HCA for Chemical Weapons Convention challenge inspections in October 2007 (ref B),repeated what he told us then: the Jordanian interagency committee for chemical weapons that handles these issues was ineffective, and not moving forward in considering the draft. He added that members of the committee did not understand the implementation process for challenge inspections or the potential benefits for Jordan, and was skeptical that the committee would be able to discuss the MOU on its own. ¶2. (C) Takhayneh, who is the MFA's representative on the committee, proposed that a delegation of U.S. experts on the CWC hold a "capacity-building" workshop for the committee members in Jordan that would explain the implementation of the various components of the treaty, and also use the opportunity to discuss the technicalities surrounding challenge inspections and the HWC itself. He recommended that he meet in advance with any such team to help strategize on how to approach the larger committee, and how to help market the bilateral agreement concept. HALE