READOUT OF JOINT DEMARCHE WITH RUSSIA TO MOROCCO

C O N F I D E N T I A L RABAT 000056 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/18/2028 TAGS: PTER KGIC PARMS PREL AU MO SUBJECT: READOUT OF JOINT DEMARCHE WITH RUSSIA TO MOROCCO ON INVITING OBSERVERS TO UPCOMING GLOBAL INITIATIVE CONFERENCE REF: STATE 21535 Classified By: POLCOUNS Craig M. Karp for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (C) On January 18, Polcouns and Russian Embassy Minister Counselor Mikhail Golovanov delivered ref joint demarche to Moroccan MFA Head of United Nations Division Azzedine Farhane regarding our request to have Morocco invite several countries as observers to Global Initiative for Combating Nuclear Terrorism (GI) conference (i.e., "Responding to Malicious Acts Involving Radioactive Materials") being hosted in Rabat on 5-7 February. Farhane readily agreed to present the list of countries (including: Algeria, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, and UAE) to his superiors. While Farhane was optimistic that the MFA would approve the list, he was personally pessimistic about the prospects of a positive response from Algeria to an invitation. ¶2. (C) Farhane requested that we provide him with points-of-contact (POC) for each of the listed countries in order better target the invitations. We agreed to try to do this, but also added that his Ministry should not wait on this information. The Moroccans agreed to our suggestion that, in the interest of time, they would send out the invitations directly to each of the respective country embassies in Rabat if we are unable to provide the MFA with POCs within one business day. ***************************************** Visit Embassy Rabat's Classified Website; http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/rabat ***************************************** Riley