CHEMICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION (CWC): WRAP UP FOR

UNCLAS THE HAGUE 000306

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

STATE FOR ISN/CB, VCI/CCA, L/NPV, IO/MPR,
SECDEF FOR OSD/GSA/CN,CP>
JOINT STAFF FOR DD PMA-A FOR WTC
COMMERCE FOR BIS (ROBERTS)
NSC FOR SMITH
WINPAC FOR WALTER

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PARM PREL CWC
SUBJECT: CHEMICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION (CWC): WRAP UP FOR
WEEK ENDING MARCH 28, 2008

This is CWC-14-08.

-------------- --------------
SUMMARY AND SCENESETTER FOR THE REVIEW CONFERENCE
-------------- --------------


1. (SBU) The last week in March moved from more
formal meetings on the Review Conference to less
formal but more focused discussions of the Chairman's
revised draft text for the report, which was
distributed on March 26. The first such informal
meeting on March 28 slowly worked through the first
twelve paragraphs of the draft, with delegations
expressing their views more often on editorial points
than major substance. The process of expressing
views on specifics, however, will be important to
determining just how far apart states' positions are,
how strongly some of the more controversial views are
held, and how much of the report will be truly
contentious.


2. (SBU) The Non-Aligned Movement states led by Cuba
have been pushing for this detailed discussion for
some time and welcomed its start, although noting how
late it began. The Chairman of the working group,
Ambassador Lyn Parker (UK),has spent an enormous
amount of time revising the draft text and trying to
accommodate as many comments as possible (he received
over 1,000 on the first draft). The European Union,
the Western group (WEOG) and like-minded states are
very happy with the text as drafted, but the NAM is
insisting that its views be included. The draft
report has also subsumed the original plan for a
draft political declaration to be discussed well
before the conference. The "declaration" (the UK
would prefer that it not be deemed "political") is
expected to appear for the first time during the week
of March 31.


3. (SBU) Despite quite a number of contentious issues
in the report (counter-terrorism, destruction, non-
proliferation, national implementation, assistance
for Articles X and XI, industry inspections, and
others),Del remains optimistic that other
delegations -- even Iran -- are working toward a
successful conference and that most issues, if not
all, can be brought to a successful compromise. More
worrisome than sabotage is the question of time. The
Working Group will be hard pressed to get through the
full text paragraph by paragraph in the one remaining
week before the Conference.


4. (SBU) The tentative program of work for the
Conference (published March 28) devotes three days to
the general debate and only begins work -- through
the Committee of the Whole -- on Thursday, April 10.
Each topic (section of the report) then has one
session through Wednesday, April 16, with the final
days reserved for subsidiary bodies. We believe that
the subsidiary bodies, small drafting/discussion
groups, will need to get started early in the
Conference and work throughout to reach agreement on
the text. The Saudi Ambassador, future Chair of the
RevCon, has been assiduously attending the meetings
of the working group, and undoubtedly has a firm
grasp of the contentious divisions. He will,
however, need some strong support from other
ambassadors as facilitators during the Conference to
make it through the sheer volume of work ahead.


5. (U) In addition to the RevCon-related meetings,
consultations were held on Article X as well as a
local Geneva Group Meeting on March 28.

--------------
WEOG and OEWG
--------------


6. (SBU) The Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
met on March 27 just after an EU meeting and before
the Open Ended Working Group (OEWG). Reactions to
the revised Chairman's composite draft report for the
RevCon were generally positive, although all agreed
that tactically it would be better not to line up too
strongly in favor of the draft. German Ambassador
Burkhart warned that much of the NAM's paper is not
in the text and will surface in new proposals. Amb.
Javits reminded everyone that the NAM is not an
official group and that it should not be given that
status in negotiations, which should be by States
Parties.


7. (SBU) On the Paris seminar hosted by the French
government earlier in the week, Amb. Lak of the
Netherlands stated that, for him, the workshop
pointed to the need for greater education and
awareness in the "real world" outside OPCW of the
potential for terrorism. He noted that lines of
action on terrorism were more for States Parties than
for the OPCW. He supported the French
recommendations on open source material. The Italian
delegate added that the partnership with industry is
critical in countering new threats. Amb. Javits
spoke of the terrorists' asymmetrical challenge to
states and statehood, and the broad capabilities of
non-state actors. The French delegate noted that a
CD was made of the seminar with copies given to all
delegations and available for others who did not
attend.


8. (U) The OEWG focused once again on procedures.
Chairman Parker (UK) presented the revised draft
report, with two versions, one highlighting the
paragraphs that had substantive revision and the
other with clean text. OPCW editors were going
through it for standard formatting and grammar, and
Amb. Parker welcomed notes of any editorial glitches.
He outlined the informal meetings to begin on Friday
(March 28),breaking the text into four parts:

-- Paragraphs 1 - 37 to be discussed March 28;
-- Paragraphs 38 - 79 for discussion March 31;
-- Paragraphs 80 - 105 for discussion April 1;
-- Paragraphs 106 - 141 for discussion April 2.

The regular OEWG meeting will be on Thursday, April
3, for final operational decisions, with Friday,
April 4, open for further discussion as needed. For
the four text meetings, informal sessions will start
in the morning, with Parker chairing, primarily for
questions, clarification and discussion of
priorities. The afternoons have been left open for
smaller drafting groups as might wish to continue
meeting, but Parker asked that the chairmen be
identified before the morning meeting disbands and
that the chairs report back to the larger group the
next day.


9. (U) When asked about the political declaration,
Parker said a draft will be circulated the week of
March 31, and noted -- as in previous meetings --
that he sees this as a short piece targeted to the
public. The Iranian delegation spoke (again) in
favor of a "solemn declaration" at the beginning of
the report, essentially a summary of its contents,
with only one document to be produced by the RevCon
rather than two. Several delegations, including the
U.S., spoke in favor of a simpler document that the
general public could understand, rather than a
summary of the complex report.


10. (U) At the first meeting of the informal OEWG on
Friday afternoon, March 28, attendance was nearly as
high as for the regular weekly OEWG meetings. After
Chairman Parker outlined the changes he had made in
the first part of the revised text, describing it at
one point as the "Lonely Planet Guide to All the
Articles," the group agreed to begin paragraph by
paragraph deliberations. The Cuban Ambassador, on
behalf of the NAM and China, laid down one final
marker that the text should not be distributed to the
SPs until the detailed discussions reached agreement,
igniting one last rebuttal from the Chair that he is
responsible for distributing a draft text to all
delegations in advance of the Conference.


11. (U) In the three hours of hard slogging discussion
that followed, the group only worked through the
first sub-section (12 paragraphs). Most of the
comments were more editorial than substantive in
nature. However, Iran threw out challenges on
several problematic issues: stating that the
differences in progress in destruction by the various
possessor states should be noted in the report;
proposing new language on riot control agents and
incapacitants; and asserting categorically that there
should be no mention in the report of UN Security
Council Resolution 1540. Iran's statements elicited
strong reaction from a number of delegations,
including the U.S. During the protracted debate on
which obligations of the Convention were most
important, the Russian delegation, largely silent to
date in larger OEWG meetings, made several useful
interventions, including objecting to adding
"fundamental" to the destruction obligation since all
obligations in the Convention are fundamental. The
Russian delegate, among others, also emphasized that
destruction and national implementation are both
critical to the Convention.

--------------
ARTICLE X CONSULTATIONS
--------------


12. (U) Informal consultations on Article X were held
on Friday, March 28. Facilitator Jitka Brodska
announced her intention of relinquishing her role as
facilitator at the end of May. She noted that one
more round of informal consultations is planned for
mid May on the topic of "readiness to provide
assistance" and the Iranian proposals on victims of
chemical weapons.


13. (U) Technical Secretariat Assistance and
Protection Branch (APB) personnel gave a presentation
which attempted to both summarize and elaborate on
the Director-General's report on the status of
implementation of Article X. The German delegate
expressed a desire to see a clearer summary and more
statistics. As the discussion continued, a running
theme became the need for clarification of how APB
activities are selected and evaluated. The Italian
delegate made a strong call for more information
regarding objectives and pointed out the need for
evaluation set against targets.


14. (U) APB representatives noted that evaluations by
participants, National Authorities, and the TS take
place after projects are completed. They stated that
considerable effort is made to ensure that
appropriate personnel attend training and that "train
the trainer" courses were the ideal. The APB
representative noted that demand for training and
assistance is greater than what budget constraints
allow the TS to supply. He noted a need for greater
voluntary contributions which currently cover
approximately 35 per cent of expenses, the rest
coming from the regular budget.


15. (U) Delrep repeated our concern regarding
obligatory Article X Paragraph 4 reporting that has
declined since last year. The APB representative
acknowledged that there may have been State Parties
that participated in an APB program that had not
submitted a report, despite every effort to encourage
them to do so.


16. (U) APB's plan of activities for 2008 was not
discussed as a separate agenda item. The facilitator
closed the meeting by noting that this item had been
covered in discussions of the DG's report. In general
terms, there was an agreement to focus on a further
definition of goals and a better evaluation of
activities. APB pointed out that a volunteer is
still needed for a Joint Exercise (similar to the one
held in Ukraine in 2005) possibly to be held in 2009.
The preference would be to hold the exercise in some
other geographical area in order to work in different
climatic conditions.

--------------
GENEVA GROUP
--------------


17. (U) On March 21, Angela Peart (Canada) and Mike
Byers (Australia) co-chaired a meeting of the Geneva
Group to discuss a draft report on the OPCW (emailed
to ISN/CB and IO/MPR). There was general agreement
on the report, with the UK, Germany, and Japan
providing minor additions. Peart promised to
circulate the final report after forwarding it to
Geneva; the report is expected to be addressed at a
pre-Expert Level Meeting, scheduled to take place in
Geneva on April 3.


18. (U) Delrep highlighted U.S. concern that the OPCW
does not tap into its Working Capital Fund despite
cash-flow problems, due in large part to late receipt
of assessed contributions. Other reps agreed to
engage the TS, specifically the DG, on the issue.
Byers noted that he will be stepping down as co-chair
and asked for interested replacements to contact
Peart.


19. (U) Javits sends.

Gallagher