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