GERMANY AGREES THAT OSLO PROCESS TEXT ON CLUSTER

C O N F I D E N T I A L BERLIN 000173

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/13/2018
TAGS: MOPS PARM PREL NATO GM
SUBJECT: GERMANY AGREES THAT OSLO PROCESS TEXT ON CLUSTER
MUNITIONS SHOULD NOT HINDER INTEROPERABILITY

REF: STATE 13607

Classified By: POLITICAL MINISTER COUNSELOR JEFF RATHKE. REASONS: 1.4 (
B) AND (D).


1. (C) Pol-mil chief delivered reftel talking points to MFA
conventional arms control desk officer Burkhard Ducoffre
February 13, stressing U.S. concerns that several provisions
in the draft Oslo Process text that will be considered at the
Feb. 18-22 meeting in Wellington could have a severe impact
on military cooperation between countries that adopt these
requirements and those who do not. Ducoffre was well aware
of the interoperability issue, referring to an Australian
paper that outlines a variety of scenarios where the current
draft text could cause problems. He stressed that Germany
did not favor doing anything that could limit military
cooperation with non-state parties, whether it be in the
context of a UN Chapter VII mission or a NATO operation, and
said Germany favored adding an explicit exception to this
effect in Article 1(c) of the draft text.


2. (C) Pol-mil chief also emphasized that the U.S. continued
to favor dealing with this issue within the framework of the
Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW),pointing out that
the Oslo Process, unlike the CCW, does not include many of
the major users and producers of cluster munitions (CM).
Ducoffre countered that a critical mass of both users and
producers had already joined the Oslo Process -- nine of the
12 users (all except the U.S., Russia and Israel) and 54 of
the 76 producers. He thought that in any case, the outcome
of the Oslo Process would be a treaty text, since Norway was
ready to push forward with as few as 20 signatories. The
only question was how many signatories above this minimum
there would be. He thought this would depend on how far the
U.S. was willing to go at the next round of CCW negotiations
in April. If the U.S. insisted on nothing more than best
practices in the production and deployment of CM, many
countries would opt for an Oslo Process treaty text.


3. (C) Ducoffre reviewed Germany's proposed three-stage
approach for dealing with CM, the first stage being an
immediate ban on the most dangerous CM (those with a failure
rate of more than 1%),followed by a transition period of
several years during which guided munitions with a
reliability rate of more 99% would be allowed. The third and
final stage would be a total ban on all CM and the
destruction of all stockpiles. Ducoffre went on to argue
that Sensor Fused Area Munitions (SEFAM) and kinetic-energy
rods would be a more effective way of engaging the whole
range of targets that CM have traditionally been used
against, without the negative humanitarian impact. He
confirmed that it remains Germany's view that SEFAM should
not considered a CM and therefore not subject to prohibition
under the Oslo Process text.
TIMKEN JR