CTWG: S/CT LETTER AND DRAFT REPORT TO PRESIDENTS

C O N F I D E N T I A L MOSCOW 002117

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/23/2018
TAGS: PREL PTER PGOV RS
SUBJECT: CTWG: S/CT LETTER AND DRAFT REPORT TO PRESIDENTS
DELIVERED, BUT NO FORMAL REPLY RECEIVED

REF: STATE 75454

Classified By: Political Minister/Counselor Alice G. Wells. Reasons 1.
4 (b) and (d)


1. (C) Summary. On July 18, we delivered reftel letter from
Ambassador Dailey to Ambassador Safonov, as well as a draft
Report to the Presidents on the U.S.-Russia Counterterrorism
Working Group (CTWG). Vladimir Prokhorov, Senior Counselor
in the MFA's Office of New Threats and Challenges, confirmed
that Safonov had received the letter from the Russian Embassy
in Washington two days prior. Although he did not have any
insight into Safonov's reaction to the letter or the draft
report, Prokhorov expressed his own skepticism about several
items listed in the draft report and in the Work Plan of the
CTWG WMD Terrorism (WMD-T) Subgroup. MFA North AMERICA
Department told us they hope to have comments on the draft
report by the end of this week, but did not yet know whether
Safonov would accept Ambassador Dailey's proposed meeting in
the U.S. September 29 or 30. End Summary.


2. (C) Prokhorov told us that GOR agencies are still
reviewing some items in the WMD-T Work Plan, in particular
the development of a joint framework for nuclear forensics.
He said GOR agencies might be hesitant to pursue other areas
of cooperation in the Work Plan due to an unwillingness to
divulge sensitive information. For example, Prokhorov
mentioned that the concerned agencies would be reluctant to
share its first response and crisis mobilization capacities
with the U.S; this would effectively put the breaks on the
U.S. proposed seminar on foreign consequence management and
collaborative responses to a WMD crisis. When we reminded
him that the U.S. would be sharing sensitive information with
Russia and that our joint capabilities could be highly
effective in responding to a WMD disaster, Prokhorov
demurred, claiming Russia wanted to focus on
non-proliferation rather than post-WMD crisis response.


3. (C) Prokhorov said our attention would be better focused
on strengthening regulation and oversight over companies
manufacturing and researching biological, chemical, and
nuclear material. He added that stricter regulations on
these companies could reduce the amount of dangerous
substances susceptible to theft and proliferation, and
decrease the terrorist threats to specific manufacturing and
research sites. We told Prokhorov that such oversight
decisions were made on a national level, and asked him to
reconsider the benefits of joint projects like the
consequence management seminar, given the likeliness of a WMD
attack.


4. (C) Although Prokhorov agreed that terrorist groups might
seek to use WMD for an attack, he reiterated the well-known
Russian argument that bioterrorism, in particular, was hardly
an imminent threat. He claimed the threat of a bioterrorist
attack was minimal at best, because terrorist networks do not
have the highly trained personnel necessary to use biological
weapons. He could not offer any insight into the exchange of
bioterrorism threat assessment methodologies, proposed in the
Work Plan. Instead, he emphasized his point about the
"virtual" bioterrorist threat by referencing the U.S.'
failure to apprehend suspects in the 2001 anthrax mail
attacks, and questioning whether the casualties were actually
caused by anthrax at all. Prokhorov tangentially alleged
that the U.S. promised to provide the FSB information on the
anthrax cases, but never did.


5. (C) Prokhorov indicated interest in potential
multilateral initiatives on counterterrorism and
strengthening existing areas of international collaboration.
For example, he recommended that the G-8 examine
counterterrorism best practices on de-radicalization, and
that we work to increase the budget and expand the
responsibilities of the U.N. Counterterrorism Committee
Executive Directorate.
RUBIN