Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
08STATE110079
2008-10-15 14:16:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Secretary of State
Cable title:  

PSI: WELCOMING BRUNEI,S COMMITMENT TO THE

Tags:  KNNP MNUC PARM PREL BX 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXYZ0010
OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHC #0079 2891421
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O R 151416Z OCT 08
FM SECSTATE WASHDC
TO RUEHBD/AMEMBASSY BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN IMMEDIATE 0000
INFO RUEHBY/AMEMBASSY CANBERRA 0000
RUEHGP/AMEMBASSY SINGAPORE 0000
C O N F I D E N T I A L STATE 110079 

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/01/2018
TAGS: KNNP MNUC PARM PREL BX
SUBJECT: PSI: WELCOMING BRUNEI,S COMMITMENT TO THE
PROLIFERATION SECURITY INITIATIVE

REF: A. STATE 068499

B. STATE 069343

C. BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN 00199

Classified By: Derived from Bandar Seri Begawan 00199,
Reasons: 1.4 (b) and (d).

C O N F I D E N T I A L STATE 110079

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/01/2018
TAGS: KNNP MNUC PARM PREL BX
SUBJECT: PSI: WELCOMING BRUNEI,S COMMITMENT TO THE
PROLIFERATION SECURITY INITIATIVE

REF: A. STATE 068499

B. STATE 069343

C. BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN 00199

Classified By: Derived from Bandar Seri Begawan 00199,
Reasons: 1.4 (b) and (d).


1. (C) BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: On September 10, 2008, the
Embassy of Brunei provided a diplomatic note to the
Department conveying the official decision of its government
to support the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI)
Statement of Interdiction Principles. Brunei had waffled on
its commitment to the PSI since attending the 2006 High-Level
Political Meeting in Warsaw (reftels). Washington greatly
appreciates Brunei's step and wishes to provide information
about ways in which Brunei can participate in the PSI.


2. (C) ACTION REQUEST: Embassy is requested to welcome
Brunei's commitment to participate in the PSI, and provide
the non-paper in paragraph 3 below to appropriate host
government officials.


3. (U) Begin text of non-paper:

The United States welcomes and greatly appreciates your
Government's diplomatic note of September 10, 2008, conveying
your decision to endorse the Proliferation Security
Initiative (PSI) and its September 4, 2003 Statement of
Interdiction Principles. We look forward to maintaining a
dialogue with you, exchanging information about the PSI, and
working with you to advance the counterproliferation goals of
the PSI and its Statement of Interdiction Principles.

As you know, the PSI is an informal group of more than 90
sovereign states that have made a political commitment to
cooperate in stopping proliferation-related transfers, using
their respective national legal authorities and acting
consistently with international law. States participating in
the PSI work together to develop their legal, diplomatic,
economic, law enforcement, and other tools to enable them to
interdict shipments of proliferation concern, to the extent
of their individual capabilities.

A variety of activities are conducted under the PSI, all of
which are voluntary on the part of each state. One way to
participate in the PSI is through interdiction training
exercises that test and enhance national capabilities and

international coordination. The next PSI exercise likely to
be conducted in the Asia-Pacific region will probably be
hosted by Singapore in November 2009. The State Department
PSI web site at http://www.state.gov/t/isn/c10390.htm lists
upcoming PSI events that Brunei Darussalam may be interested
in attending.

The PSI Statement of Interdiction Principles includes a
commitment to review and work to strengthen relevant national
legal authorities where necessary to accomplish the PSI
objectives. In this regard, PSI participating states have
found it useful to assess their national legal authorities
and capabilities to stop transfers of proliferation concern,
whether by land, sea, or air, and determine what they can do
to close gaps identified in law enforcement or other
authorities, including in strategic trade controls and
enforcement, or in ports, territorial seas, or airspace. PSI
participating states are also willing to assist each other in
closing gaps in capabilities.

The PSI Model National Response Plan developed by New
Zealand, which has been provided to Brunei Darussalam's
embassy in Washington, may be used as a set of guidelines for
identifying the steps to effective organization for
interdiction actions.

A new tool for PSI partners to share experience with each
other is a password-protected web-based portal developed by
Germany. It is located on the server of the German Foreign
Office at www.psi.diplo.de. The web portal is presently
online on a provisional basis; Germany will provide a
separate password for each country for greater security. The
U.S. believes this portal will play an important role in
strengthening the PSI community and providing all PSI
partners with access to key PSI documents and points of
contact.

Because interdictions often require senior government
decision-making under extremely short deadlines, we would
like to encourage Brunei Darussalam to review its existing
interagency decision-making process, and organize further if
necessary, to coordinate decision-making related to the PSI.
Ministries and agencies that could be involved in
interdictions include those responsible for diplomacy,
defense, law enforcement, intelligence, customs, banking and
finance, border patrol, and coast guard.

Interdiction is a supplement to national and international
control frameworks. If a country learns of efforts by a
proliferator to obtain WMD-related technology despite
existing control regimes, it can work with other relevant PSI
participating states to seek legal ways to prevent the
shipment from reaching its destination. Ideally, such
proliferation attempts will be stopped as early in the
process as possible. While the image of an interdiction is a
naval boarding on the high seas, such occurrences are rare.
PSI participants seek to interdict shipments of proliferation
concern where the maximum legal authority exists. This means
that many PSI interdictions occur in port, where a PSI
participant can apply its customs and export control laws and
port state control authorities.

One area for further development of the PSI is the creation
of tools to interdict payments between proliferators and
their suppliers and to deny proliferators access to
financing. The United States has in place Executive Order
13382, which prohibits U.S. persons from doing business with
entities designated because of their proliferation
activities. Executive Order 13382 allows the United States
to track and freeze funds within U.S. jurisdiction that are
used to finance proliferation. Persons that are designated
under this Order are effectively denied access to the U.S.
financial and commercial systems. The U.S. encourages other
governments to create similar authorities to ensure that
persons and entities under their jurisdiction cannot finance
or otherwise support the activities of known proliferators.
The text of E.O. 13382 is available at the White House
website:
www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/06/2005 0629.html .

PSI participants also have an important role to play in
implementing UN Security Council Resolutions intended to stop
proliferation. Participation in the PSI is one effective way
to fulfill UNSCR 1540. UNSCR 1718 on countering the DPRK's
WMD and ballistic missile development, and UNSCRs 1737, 1747,
1803 and 1835 on countering Iran's proliferation sensitive
activities, form important international legal bases for
stopping items of proliferation concern from being
transferred to and from those countries.

The two 2005 Protocols to the UN Convention for the
Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime
Navigation (SUA) and its related protocol on Fixed Platforms
create an international legal framework for combating, on the
high seas, the use of a ship to undertake a terrorist attack
or to transport terrorists or cargo intended for use in WMD
programs. They also create a new international framework for
interdicting items of proliferation concern. The SUA
Protocols' nonproliferation offenses and the boarding regime
support efforts in the PSI and are consistent with the PSI
commitment to strengthen national and international regimes
to stop proliferation. The United States has signed the SUA
Protocols, is preparing to ratify them, and urges all UN
Member States to accede to them as well.

End non-paper.


4. (U) POINTS OF CONTACT: Questions on the PSI may be
directed to ISN/CPI (Jane Purcell, 202-647-6186, or Carlos
Guzman, 202-647-6320).
RICE