Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
08THEHAGUE89
2008-01-30 14:52:00
UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Embassy The Hague
Cable title:  

CHEMICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION (CWC): WRAP UP FOR

Tags:  PARM PREL CWC 
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UNCLAS THE HAGUE 000089 

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STATE FOR ISN/CB, VCI/CCA, L/NPV, IO/MPR,
SECDEF FOR OSD/GSA/CN,CP>
JOINT STAFF FOR DD PMA-A FOR WTC
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E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PARM PREL CWC
SUBJECT: CHEMICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION (CWC): WRAP UP FOR
WEEK ENDING JANUARY 25, 2008


This is CWC-03-07.
-------
SUMMARY
-------

UNCLAS THE HAGUE 000089

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 JANUARY 25, 2008


This is CWC-03-07.
--------------
SUMMARY
--------------


1. (U) The Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) for
Preparations for the Second Review Conference
(RevCon) began its work on the draft report in
earnest this week. Many delegations offered
substantive interventions on "Block 1" of the
Chairman's draft text, drawing early lines on the
relative importance of disarmament and non-
proliferation, the role of the Scientific Advisory
Board (SAB),and other points as captured below.


2. (SBU) The WEOG met in its expanded format
(including members of the EU, Japan and Korea). Most
interventions were made by WEOG members, although
Slovenia spoke on behalf of the EU. In a private
conversation later, the UK indicated its concern that
EU members are too hesitant to speak individually in
support of a common position, a tactic the NAM
continues to use effectively to add weight to its
statements.


3. (U) Although an Article XI consultation was added
last-minute to the OPCW calendar, the schedule in
general remains fairly open, indicating that the
focus of delegations has in large part shifted to
preparations for the RevCon.

--------------
EXPANDED WEOG MEETING
--------------


4. (U) The expanded WEOG meeting on January 22
included non-WEOG EU member states, Japan and Korea
and lasted longer than regular WEOG meetings owing to
extensive discussion on a number of subjects.
Discussion started on "Block 1" of the OEWG
Chairman's draft text. Most delegations agreed that
the text appeared to be balanced and neutral. The UK
noted that while the Chairman's text differs from the
UK national position on certain issues, it is not in
a position to take the lead in proposing significant
changes but would be able to support others who did.
The UK also reported that there had been debate in
the Bureau about whether to produce two separate
RevCon documents -- a Report and a Political
Statement -- or one consolidated report; in his
capacity as OEWG Chair, UK Amb. Parker feels that
having two documents is important to keep a sole

report being held hostage by certain delegations.


5. (U) A number of delegations raised issues they
would like to be added to or expanded in the Chair's
draft text. Canada and the UK both stated their
desire for strengthening the role of the SAB. Citing
the reference to Albania's landmark completion of
destruction of its CW stockpile, Canada also
suggested including a reference to Libya's accession
as a possessor state since the First RevCon. Germany
indicated its desire to highlight destruction
deadlines, including intermediate ones, though it
admitted that this might be problematic vis-a-vis
Russia. Referring to its national paper on measures
to be taken in the event of chemical crises, Japan
raised the issue as a possible RevCon discussion
topic.


6. (U) Turning to the NAM's RevCon statement, Amb.
Javits characterized it as unbalanced and clearly a
position from which the NAM will try to negotiate.
He also pointed out a number of contradictions within
the text, suggesting that they could be good points
for the WEOG to focus on. Many other delegations
agreed with the U.S. assessment, with the Netherlands
and Japan both citing their concern at the NAM's

apparent interest in focusing on increased
assistance. Canada and Sweden both noted that the
NAM's claim that non-proliferation is not part of the
CWC is flawed, particularly as the First RevCon
report set the stage for non-proliferation (Sweden)
and the OPCW's budget specifically lists non-
proliferation as a core objective (Canada). Spain
agreed with the U.S. suggestion that moderate NAM
members might be more inclined to WEOG positions than
those of the most-vocal and radical NAM delegations.


7. (U) Speaking in its EU Presidency capacity,
Slovenia said that it plans to increase EU
coordination in the run up to the RevCon. It plans
to host a conference in Ljubljana with the goal of
formulating common EU positions on a number of areas,
including the General Purpose Criterion, verification
regime, and universality.


8. (U) Amb. Lak (Netherlands) reviewed his donor
coordination initative, as reported last week. He
stressed that the initiative's goal is to be forward-
looking and to involve concrete plans for current or
future assistance. Slovenia noted that the EU -- as
a major contributor of voluntary funds to the OPCW --
wants to carry out a cost-benefit analysis of
assistance programs to determine the focus for future
EU support. Among others, Germany expressed its
support for Amb. Lak's plan, saying that donor
coordination and unity was necessary to set the
OPCW's assistance and international cooperation
priorities and to combat the NAM's apparent push
solely for a "proliferation of ICA funding."


9. (U) On sampling and analysis, Germany suggested
discussing it during the Industry Cluster meeting on
February 19, especially as they plan to have a German
expert from Berlin in attendance. The UK, which also
plans to have an expert from London at the meeting,
agreed that discussions either during or on the
fringes of the meeting would be beneficial. Japan
recommended focusing discussion on how to implement
sampling and analysis as, in its view, the TS has
already exhibited the technical capacity to carry it
out. However, the Netherlands noted that it would be
premature to look at implementation before discussing
the broader principle of sampling and analysis.


10. (U) Picking up on a topic from last week's WEOG
meeting, Australia said that it also had been
approached by the TS to arrange a visit to "inspect"
Australia's offers of assistance under Article X.
Like many of the other countries already approached
by the TS, Australia said that its offer of
assistance had been very general and that there was
nothing concrete for the TS to inspect. It emerged
that the TS's motivation for visiting Article X
donors may in part be driven by a need to spend EU
Joint Action voluntary funds before they expire.

--------------
ARTICLE X
--------------


11. (U) As reported last week and above, the TS has
approached a number of SPs to "inspect" their offers
of assistance made under Article X, as provided for
in Article VIII, paragraph 39b. On January 22, at
the request of Gennadi Lutay (Head, Assistance and
Protection Branch (APB)),Delreps met with him and
Christina Rodriguez, another member of APB. Lutay
spent quite a while extolling the virtues of the
initiative described above. He explained that in a
number of cases, the request for a visit has acted as
a catalyst for States Parties to withdraw or update
their original offers, often made ten years ago
following entry into force. While this is certainly
a valuable exercise, Del questions whether actual

visits to capitals are necessary to accomplish this.


12. (U) As expected, Lutay eventually indicated an
interest in visiting the U.S. Delreps noted the
general nature of the U.S. offer (medical
antidotes/treatment as needed),and inquired as to
what precisely the TS would hope to "inspect" or gain
by such a visit. Lutay and Rodriguez were unable to
clearly articulate a purpose, although they
eventually suggested that perhaps the U.S. could
consider a presentation or demonstration of a
representative sample of medical antidotes that we
might provide. Lutay also pointed out that it would
be difficult for the TS to justify excluding the U.S.
from this initiative; the broader concept of
excluding a number of States Parties whose offers
would not benefit from inspection did not seem to
catch on with APB as a viable alternative. Delreps
reiterated the need for a clear purpose for the
visit, but committed to discuss the matter with
Washington.


13. (SBU) COMMENT: The most important question is
clearly whether or not this is an appropriate and/or
effective use of OPCW funds. However, the effort
raises additional questions as to the ability of the
TS staff involved in the effort to analyze individual

SIPDIS
offers in this context. END COMMENT.


14. (U) Iranian Proposal Regarding Victims of
Chemical Weapons: Jitka Brodska, the facilitator for
Article X, informed Delrep that Iran has requested
she circulate its paper regarding victims of chemical
weapons prior to the next consultation scheduled for
February 18. She is willing to do so but wants to
avoid creating a separate agenda item and plans to
allow the proposal simply to be brought up under the
discussions regarding readiness to provide
assistance. Brodska noted that the Iranians are
insistent on making the issue a topic on the agenda
of the RevCon and expressed an interest in hearing
how the U.S. would like to see the issue handled in
the coming weeks.

--------------
INDUSTRY CLUSTER
--------------


15. (U) On January 22, Delrep met with Bill Kane
(Head, IVB) at his request to discuss the current
state of the Industry Cluster. Amb. Dani (Algeria),
in his capacity as EC Vice-Chair for the Industry
Cluster, is considering holding a session during the
February 19 Cluster meetings on the status of the
Cluster's work and goals for the future. In advance
of that, Amb. Dani asked Bill Kane to touch bases
with several delegations who are most involved in the
work of the Cluster.


16. (U) The basis for the discussion was the "List of
Issues Formally Open" that was prepared for the
RevCon OEWG (dated 23 March 2007). In the end, the
TS position on many of these issues is similar to

SIPDIS
that of the USG. The TS sees no value in opening or
re-opening issues that have little chance of forward
progress. Of course, the TS acknowledges that they
will be criticized by some delegations for the long
list of open items coming from the First RevCon, but
they are also realistic about the prospects for true
progress. A few topics that Kane expects to be of
particular concern to some include:

- Low concentration thresholds for Schedule 2A/2A*:
Kane understands that the U.S. position on this issue
is not the most extreme; that distinction seems to
belong to Germany. Without some effort to resolve
the concerns of Germany, Japan, and the U.S., this
issue will not move forward.


- OCPF site selection: The TS believes that the
newly modified methodology the TS has begun using
this year gives most delegations exactly what they
wanted in distributing OCPF inspections in a more
balanced way based on the size of their domestic
industry. The TS would prefer to let the new
methodology have at least one year of application to
assess its true impact. So, if delegations continue
to insist that consultations resume on this matter,
the TS preference is that they focus only on VA Part
IX para 11(c) ("proposals by States Parties") for the
time being.


17. (U) Kane also mentioned briefly the OCPF
declaration "upgrade" which is the subject of an
upcoming TS paper. The TS does not see a need to
start consultations on this necessarily. The TS sees
the option of handling this in a way similar to site
selection. Although we might agree with the options
available to the DG, we will need to withhold
judgment on the matter until the TS paper has been
thoroughly reviewed.


18. (U) Another issue that Delrep discussed with Kane
in a later setting came from the introduction to the
list referred to in paragraph 16 above -- the fact
that the EC Bureau took a decision on March 1 to
delete certain entries and no longer consider them to
be formally open. The presumption is that this was
done because these items had been resolved in some
other way. Kane said he would consider the value of
the TS doing a further review of the issues in the
March 23 List to see if there were other items that
might be proposed to the Bureau for removal for
similar reasons. This could ease the backlog that
would need to be discussed at the RevCon.

--------------
WEOG MEETING
--------------


19. (U) The January 24 meeting of the WEOG was
uneventful. The purpose of the meeting was to
discuss delegations' positions going into the OEWG
meeting. Del shared the general aspects of its
comments on the first section of the draft RevCon
report. The only other delegations to share their
positions were the UK and Germany, whose points
overlapped the U.S. points substantially.

--------------
OEWG: PREPARATIONS FOR THE REVIEW CONFERENCE
--------------


20. (U) On March 24, Amb. Parker (UK) chaired the
seventeenth meeting of the OEWG to date. The agenda
items were: (1) draft provisional RevCon agenda; (2)
the first section of the draft RevCon report; and (3)
participation of non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) in the RevCon.


21. (U) Prior to beginning the agenda, Amb. Parker
briefly discussed the history of the issue of
rotation of the Chair of the RevCon between regional
groups. He noted that an amendment to the rules of
procedure appears to be needed to address this issue
for this RevCon and into the future. The Legal
Advisor is drafting an opinion on the matter, which
the DG will circulate soon in a note. Also, Parker
gave some time to the Pakistani delegation, in their
role as chair of the Asian group, to announce the
group's agreement to nominate Saudi Arabian
Ambassador El Khereiji to serve as the RevCon chair
(given the assumptions already explained).


22. (U) On the topic of the draft provisional agenda,
there was significant discussion on the following

items:

- item 9(c)(vi): Consultations, cooperation and
fact-finding including the relationship with other
multilateral efforts. This topic met with a number
of questions from delegations. India encouraged a
discussion about Article IX, apart from other
organizations. Russia suggested that discussions
about other organizations might fit better under item
9(e): the functioning of the OPCW.

- item 9(c)(viii): Economic and technological
development and steps to the full implementation of
Article VII and Article XI. This topic also met with
a number of questions from delegations. India and
Algeria suggested that Article XI be given separate
consideration on the agenda.

- There was also some discussion on the best place
on the agenda to discuss terrorism, given the limited
mandate of the OPCW in this area.


23. (U) On the first section of the report text, most
delegations limited their comments to general
observations, committing to giving specific textual
changes to the Chair directly. Iran was the first to
intervene, mentioning many of its pet interests:
"delicate balance," CWC primarily as a disarmament
instrument, caution over the introduction of "new"
terms (e.g., preferred use of "verification of
activities not prohibited" over "non-proliferation"),
focus on destruction and deadlines, replacement of
"regions of tension or instability" in the
universality discussion with "those whose non-
adherence is a cause for serious concern," and adding
the idea of "free trade."


24. (U) India shared many of these same points,
adding their concern for how the discussions on
terrorism and reference to the SAB are handled.
South Africa announced that their comments would
focus on the reference to UNSCR 1540 and being more
proactive on many areas, including assistance and
protection. Germany noted the importance of balance
between destruction and other matters, and questioned
why the SAB is singled out amongst the several boards
that function in conjunction with the TS. On
destruction, the Netherlands cautioned against too
congratulatory a tone in this area, and the UK
pointed out that some intermediate deadlines have not
yet been met. Del deployed general points, drawing
on the revised text received from Washington, and has
submitted specific suggestions in writing to the
Chair.


25. (U) The use of the term &non-proliferation8 was a
common theme throughout the meeting. After several
interventions (including Iran,s),Canada expressed
surprise and confusion at the debate in a well timed
intervention that included a reference to previous
agreement to non-proliferation as a core objective in
the annual budget. Sweden also noted that the term
appears throughout the report of the First RevCon.
Germany introduced the term &confidence in non-
proliferation8 and Mexico questioned the need for,
relevance of, or the chance of a healthy debate on
nonproliferation v. disarmament, as they saw it as
much too early to narrow the many ways this balance
could be achieved.


26. (U) On the topic of the participation of NGOs,
India expressed its concern over the poor
geographical distribution of NGOs that participated
in the summer 2007 event and whether another event
would yield significantly different results. South
Africa noted that, although they did not question the
removal of certain NGOs from the summer event, they
would like to see as complete a list as possible this

time before invitations are sent out.

--------------
ARTICLE XI
--------------


27. (U) On January 25, Li Hong (China) led a
consultation on Article XI ("fostering of
international cooperation for peaceful purposes in
the field of chemical activities"). The facilitator
acknowledged that he had neither a particular agenda
for the meeting nor any particular expectations. As
a result, he achieved exactly what he set out to do.
He did, however, ask delegations for their thoughts
on whether consultations should move forward with
substantive work at this point or instead focus on
preparations for the RevCon and then resume
afterward. There was a general consensus expressed
that work should move forward now based on the
mandate from CSP-12.


28. (U) The facilitator referenced the working paper
distributed by Cuba on behalf of the NAM and China at
CSP-12 (C-12/NAT.1, dated 6 November 2007),along
with, as an afterthought, other older national papers
distributed by countries such as Switzerland and New
Zealand. He encouraged delegations to look at these
as a source of ideas for substantive work by the
group. Del intervened to state that, although many
of the ideas presented in the NAM paper could serve
as a good basis for the work of the consultation,
this should not be interpreted as an endorsement of
the paper as a whole, which presents these as
"indicative elements of a plan of action." The Cuban
delegation intervened to state that they shared the
U.S view of the mandate and work of the group, at
least at this time. Iran, however, felt it necessary
to note that, even though the mandate was clear, they
still had hope that "dynamic" positions might shift
over time to allow the eventual undertaking of an
action plan. Del views substantive work in the time
leading up to the RevCon as a way to reduce the
urgency of calls for an action plan during the
RevCon.

--------------
IRAQI ACCESSION
--------------


29. (SBU) Delrep met with Director of Verification
Horst Reeps and UK Delrep Wolstenholme on January 25
to provide imagery forwarded by Washington and share
general thoughts on the progress of accession and
steps to take in advance of and following Iraq's
submission of its initial declaration. Reeps has
heard nothing further from Baghdad, but expressed his
desire to convene a short-notice trilateral
(U.S./UK/TS) meeting in The Hague, preferably
involving experts from capitals, to review the newest
version of the Iraqi declaration upon receipt. (Del
rep did hear directly from Iraqi Amb. Banaa that he
expects accession to occur "any day" but, as his
predictions have tended toward the overly optimistic
in the past, does not necessarily take this as an
indicator that accession is imminent.)


30. (SBU) Reeps mentioned a recent conversation with
the Iranian delegation, who indicated an Iranian
desire for some sort of full admission of guilt
regarding the use of CW in Iran immediately following
accession. Reeps also noted that a number of
delegations have been inquiring about the general
possibility of coalition forces having discovered old
CW rounds.


31. (SBU) In terms of steps following accession,
Reeps still recommends that the Iraqis introduce
their declaration at the EC session following their

accession. He and the DG also believe it would be
preferable for the Iraqis themselves to state up
front that they are unable to guarantee the safety
and security of an inspection team, thus justifying
postponing initial inspections until the situation
improves significantly. The UK delegation expressed
concern that Iraq has no concept of the political
difficulties it is likely to encounter from Iran
following accession.


32. (U) Javits sends.

Schofer