NORWEGIANS RESPOND BLANDLY TO UN HARMONIZATION OF

UNCLAS OSLO 000668 SIPDIS SENSITIVE FOR HEATHER WARD, IO/MPR/SC AND MICHAEL SCANLON, USUN/MR E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: AMGT AORC APER PREL UNGA NO SUBJECT: NORWEGIANS RESPOND BLANDLY TO UN HARMONIZATION OF CONDITIONS OF SERVICE PROPOSAL REF: SECSTATE 129988 ¶1. (SBU) Poloff spoke wth Lars Petter Henie, the deputy director of the UN MFA section regarding reftel. Henie said he wuld prefer to respond in a written medium, and thi was his diplomatic and nuanced response: "Wetake great interest in the issue and efforts to imrove recruitment to UN operations. It has been or experience that UNAMA and UNAMI have become better staffed after the Fifth Committee granted special benefits for those two operations, but of course we agree that over-compensation should be avoided. From our point of view addressing the recruitment problems is more urgently needed than cost-saving measures but we appreciate these very constructive US comments." WHITNEY