PSI: SUMMARY OF MAY 28-29, 2008 PSI 5TH

UNCLAS STATE 075378

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KNNP MNUC PARM PREL
SUBJECT: PSI: SUMMARY OF MAY 28-29, 2008 PSI 5TH
ANNIVERSARY SENIOR LEVEL MEETING AND OUTREACH WORKSHOP

REF: A. STATE 023568

B. STATE 023570


1. SUMMARY: On the occasion of the fifth anniversary
since the President's announcement of the Proliferation
Security Initiative (PSI),the U.S. hosted a PSI Senior
Level Meeting and PSI Outreach Workshop on May 28-29,
2008 in Washington, DC. The May 28 senior level meeting
was for senior nonproliferation policy-makers from all
PSI endorsing states. The 86 PSI states represented at
the meeting reviewed the PSI's results and successes
over the last five years and looked at ways to continue
strengthening the Initiative for the future. On May 29,
the U.S. and PSI partners presented a PSI outreach
workshop that provided detailed information on the broad
range of PSI activities for all states interested
in learning more about the PSI, both endorsing states and
non-endorsing states. 21 non-PSI states attended the
outreach workshop, as well as all but a few of the PSI
endorsing states.


2. OBJECTIVE AND ACTION REQUESTED: Washington wishes to
provide the Government of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas
(GCOB)the results of the PSI Senior Level Meeting and
Outreach Workshop. Post is requested to provide the
following summaries of the May 28-29 meetings to host
government officials from relevant agencies such as
Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Ministries of Defense,
Law Enforcement Agencies (including Customs, Border
Guards, etc.),and Intelligence Agencies. Note: GCOB
representative only attended the May 29 Outreach Workshop.


3. POINTS OF CONTACT: Additional meeting materials and
presentations for post's reference can be provided by
State/ISN/CPI Carlos Guzman (GuzmanCS@state.gov) or Jane
Purcell (PurcelJA@state.gov) upon request.


4. BEGIN TEXT OF SUMMARY OF THE PSI FIFTH ANNIVERSARY SENIOR
LEVEL MEETING HELD ON MAY 28, 2008:

John C. Rood, U.S. Acting Under Secretary of State for Arms
Control and International Security, chaired the Senior-Level
Meeting on Wednesday, May 28, 2008, open to all states that
have endorsed the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI).
86 of the 92 PSI endorsing countries sent representatives to
the meeting. The focus of the meeting was to review the
PSI,s results and successes over the last five years and
look at ways to continue strengthening the PSI for the future.

The meeting covered a broad range of topics, including
reviewing the first five years of the PSI and identifying
challenges for the future; discussing efforts to strengthen
international frameworks to combat WMD proliferation; and
expanding distribution of PSI information to all PSI
partners. Stephen J. Hadley, Assistant to the President for
National Security Affairs, gave the keynote address
discussing proliferation challenges for the 21st century, and
how the PSI can continue to help meet the
counterproliferation challenges in the years ahead. The
address was the only event open to the media and attracted
considerable attention from the press.

-- TAKING STOCK: THE FIRST FIVE YEARS. France led a panel of
speakers from Spain, The Netherlands, Russia, and Italy that
reviewed the first five successful years of the PSI; looked
back at lessons learned over the last five years on
implementing PSI; described issues that pose obstacles in
implementing the PSI Statement of Interdiction Principles,
and raised ideas about the way ahead to solve them. During
open discussion the panel challenged PSI partners to develop
ideas on the right tools to intervene and to focus on those
problems that need improvement both at the national and
international level. Panelists introduced ideas to maintain
momentum such as continued PSI exercises, improved national
decision-making processes, improvements in legal frameworks,
outreach to industry, and outreach to non-PSI countries.
Through these means, PSI partners will maintain the ability
to adapt to the ever changing and deceptive methods used by
proliferators.

-- LOOKING AHEAD: CONTINUING TO STRENGTHEN THE PSI. The UK
led a panel of speakers from Turkey, New Zealand, Croatia,
Lithuania, and Kazakhstan that discussed current
proliferation threats; challenges of the current
proliferation environment and ideas on how to deal with them;
how to improve international cooperation for more rapid
interdiction action; ways to increase PSI countries,
participation in PSI activities; ideas on how PSI countries
can improve regional capacities and cooperation; and the
importance and challenges of countering proliferation by air.

-- KEYNOTE LUNCHEON ADDRESS. Poland's MFA Under Secretary
of State Witold Waszczykowski discussed the contributions PSI
has made in the last five years, highlighted the regional
cooperation in Central and Eastern Europe in PSI activities,
and encouraged all PSI partners to organize regional
activities and outreach, so as to continue broadening the
international consensus in support of the fight against the
proliferation of WMD.

-- EFFORTS TO STRENGTHEN INTERNATIONAL FRAMEWORKS. Japan led
a panel of speakers from Canada, Australia, the UAE, and
Spain on how new treaties and frameworks support the PSI; and
how the PSI can fill gaps and assist in examining and
strengthening national legal authorities and applicable
international law. The panelists discussed the role of UN
Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1540, UNSCRs 1718 (DPRK)
and 1737/1747/1803 (Iran),proliferation finance guidance
produced by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF),illicit
WMD proliferation during meetings of the International Civil
Aviation Organization (ICAO),and the 2005 protocols to the
Convention on the Suppression of Unlawful Acts (SUA) Against
the Safety of Maritime Navigation.

-- EXPANDING THE DISTRIBUTION OF PSI INFORMATION. Germany
offered a detailed brief on its efforts to develop a web
portal available to PSI partners to enhance collective and
individual interdiction capability through
information-sharing, using a password-protected PSI website.
The PSI website is available for initial review by all PSI
partners. Access to the website can be obtained through the
local German Embassy for login and password information.

-- WASHINGTON DECLARATION FOR THE PSI 5TH ANNIVERSARY SENIOR
LEVEL MEETING. The meeting concluded with the adoption of
the Washington Declaration reaffirming the commitment of all
PSI partners to the Statement of Interdiction Principles and
renewed efforts to strengthen the PSI at both the national
and international level.

Meeting information can be found at the U.S. PSI webpage at
www.state.gov/t/isn/c10390.htm , to include the Washington
Declaration, NSA Stephen Hadley's speech, updated PSI fact
sheet, and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's). Available
presentation materials were distributed to PSI country
representatives who attended the meeting on May 28.
Presentation materials are available upon request.

END TEXT.


5. BEGIN TEXT OF SUMMARY OF THE PSI FIFTH ANNIVERSARY
OUTREACH WORKSHOP HELD ON MAY 29, 2008:

Patricia A. McNerney, Acting Assistant Secretary for the
International Security and Nonproliferation Bureau of the
U.S. Department of State, chaired a PSI Outreach Workshop on
Thursday, May 29, open to all PSI countries and non-PSI
countries. 21 non-PSI countries attended the meeting. The
workshop provided detailed information on the broad range of
PSI activities, and shared best practices and tools that have
been developed to assist countries with implementing the PSI
Statement of Interdiction Principles.

-- OVERVIEW OF THE PSI. France led a panel of speakers from
the U.S. and UK that addressed the origins of the PSI, the
Statement of Interdiction Principles and its practical
implications as a equal and voluntary initiative that fully
respects national and international laws; and presented new
examples of PSI successes and the benefits of PSI,
demonstrating how the PSI enhances the global
nonproliferation objectives of all countries.

-- CURRRENT PROLIFERATION THREATS AND CHALLENGES. The UK led
a panel of speakers from Australia, Canada and Italy that
discussed the challenges posed by transshipments by sea,
land, and air and lessons learned during the last five years;
cooperation with industry and involvement of industry in
support of effective interdiction activities; and challenges
with interdicting dual-use items and materials. In addition,
the topic of proliferation finance was introduced to convey
how proliferators exploit financial vulnerabilities of the
international financial system to finance the trade of
prohibited proliferation sensitive items and how FATF has
developed guidance to deal with this problem at the national
and international level. The organization of national
customs operations to prevent and stop proliferation-related
trafficking was also covered.

-- THE PSI OPERATIONAL EXPERTS GROUP (OEG). The UK
introduced the role of the OEG, emphasizing that the OEG
works on behalf of all PSI endorsing states to develop
operational concepts for interdiction; explore related
operational issues associated with the legal, law
enforcement, customs and intelligence arenas; and collaborate
to develop an exercise program to increase partner capacity
and improve national and international interoperability. The
presentation highlighted the record of the OEG in the last
five years to include 16 meetings, over 30 exercises,
tabletops, and workshops and developing capacity building
products such as the New Zealand Model National Response Plan
and the U.S. WMD Commodity Reference Manual. It concluded
with addressing the challenges for the OEG in the areas of
growth, sustaining momentum, and adapting to the threat of
WMD proliferation.

-- THE PSI AND INDUSTRY OUTREACH. Denmark introduced its
experience with industry outreach to address ways of
conducting interdiction operations minimizing impact to
trade; the importance of information exchange between
government agencies and industry; developing guidelines for
cooperation; involving industry during exercises; and
examples on how to conduct industry outreach at the national
and international level.

-- THE PSI EXERCISE PROGRAM. Poland led a panel of speakers
from the U.S., Ukraine, and Croatia that introduced the PSI
exercise program and the history of PSI exercises; explained
the exercise strategy for current and future exercises;
discussed the different types of exercises in the maritime,
land and air domains and described the different interagency
actions involved with each area. The presentation also
discussed the benefits of participating in exercises and
ideas on level of involvement and participation in future
exercises, to include non-PSI countries as observers when
opportunities arise. Ukraine and Poland offered short briefs
on their respective hosting experiences concerning two recent
PSI exercises. Ukraine hosted PSI exercise Eastern Shield in
October 2007 and Croatia hosted PSI exercise Adriatic Shield
in May 2008.

-- PSI LEGAL LESSONS LEARNED. The UK and the Netherlands
introduced a primer on legal aspects related to the PSI,
emphasizing that all PSI activities are consistent with
national and international laws. The presentation highlighted
the importance of taking stock of existing national
authorities and emphasized the utility of PSI as a tool to
enforce UNSCR 1540. Additionally the issue of jurisdiction,
disposition and liability were addressed, highlighting that
these issues pose short-term implementation challenges in
some instances but at the same time, demonstrate a measure of
the success of the PSI in interdicting prohibited WMD-related
items.

-- ORGANIZING FOR THE PSI. New Zealand provided an overview
of the PSI Model National Response Plan that provides
guidance on key issues that a country needs to consider when
developing a framework for responding to a PSI situation and
addresses questions and issues to be addressed when
developing or improving national plans. A copy of the plan
was distributed to all PSI and non-PSI countries in
attendance. Singapore provided a brief on how a government
can organize internal interagency coordination to optimize
its ability to achieve overall PSI objectives. It highlighted
the creation of an Inter-Ministerial Committee to assess,
coordinate, and advise senior officials on relevant agency
actions related to PSI events, with the goal of achieving
interconnectivity by all relevant agencies, prompt exchange
and flow of information, and a timely response.

-- WALK-THROUGH OF AN INTERDICTION SCENARIO. A U.S. Naval War
College professor facilitated a panel discussion on two
interdiction actions based on hypothetical WMD trafficking
interdiction scenarios. The panel consisted of legal,
diplomatic, policy, military, and custom/law enforcement
experts highlighting key issues that may arise during an
interdiction situation. The scenarios provided participants
with lessons about the PSI that have been identified through
previous PSI games, exercises, and real world interdictions.

-- HOW EXPORT CONTROLS SUPPORT THE PSI. Romania and Croatia
presented briefs on their governments' experience in enacting
export control laws, emphasizing the importance of
strengthening primary export control legislation; taking
stock of existing legislation to address gaps with revised
and new legislation; highlighting the efficiency of a
catch-all clause; and asserting that all countries, including
those not a country of origin, face the threat of WMD
proliferation and may provide opportunities along a
proliferation or smuggling route.

Note: Available presentation materials were distributed to
country representatives who attended the workshop on May 29.
Presentation materials are available upon request.

END TEXT
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