NATO/VCC: JANUARY 22 VCC AND VCC EXPERTS, MEETINGS

C O N F I D E N T I A L USNATO 000035 SIPDIS NOFORN SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/22/2018 TAGS: PREL PARM KCFE NATO RS OSCE SUBJECT: NATO/VCC: JANUARY 22 VCC AND VCC EXPERTS, MEETINGS REF: A. A. STATE 155906 ¶B. B.AC/319-A(2007)0012 (CFE) ¶C. C.AC/319-A(2007)0011 ¶D. D.USNATO 0005254 Classified By: Deputy Chief of Mission Richard G. Olson, reasons 1.4 (b and d) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: The Experts agreed and the VCC approved the text for the common understanding of Annex A, Section V, Paragraph 5 of the Final Document of the First CFE Review Conference as suggested by the U.S. in Ref A. The understanding will be forwarded to the JCG-T in Vienna. END SUMMARY -------------- VIENNA DOCUMENT ISSUES -------------- ¶2. (C) The Chair reported that Russia has been unusually active this year in conducting Vienna Document (VD) evaluations and inspections, causing the loss of several by NATO states. This Russian activity included both and evaluation and a VD inspection in Georgia that was notified directly by FAX to Georgia and not distributed to all states parties. In conjunction with this, the U.S. Representative noted that the U.S. had lost an evaluation quota because of a Russian evaluation in Croatia, and that the U.S. wanted to replace this with an evaluation in Austria. Norway proposed that NATO deconflict both VD evaluations and inspections throughout the year by proposing time blocks as is done in CFE. The U.S. Representative noted that this would be technically not in keeping with the VCC-stated purpose of a VD inspection, which, although in practice used differently, is supposed to be to inspect for unnotified activities that should have been reported. Germany reported that invitations had been sent for attendees at seminars on the VD to be conducted in Berlin on March 2-13. Norway reported that a paper they were preparing for the Nordic and Baltic States would focus on Chapter 9 of the VD, and would propose that the Heads of Verification meeting at the AIAM consider proposals to: (1) increase the quota for evaluations; (2) increase the size of evaluation and inspection teams to allow more multinational teams; and (3) decrease the number of VD inspections. This way, especially with (1) and (2) above, they hoped to alleviate the rush to conduct evaluations. (COMMENT: This is the latest of several attempts by Norway and others to have the Heads of Verification meeting address policy matters and become more dynamic. This suggests that the U.S. policy community may need carefully to craft guidance for the DTRA representatives at this meeting.) -------------- CFE ISSUES -------------- ¶3. (C) The IS Chair summarized recent HLTF discussions on next steps and raised the possibility of someone notifying an inspection in Russia early enough for the Russian response to be received prior to the next HLTF (the U.S. is the next one up according to the deconfliicted NATO schedule). This would, of course, be a national decision. (COMMENT: subsequent discussion with the U.S. delegation (VCI, DTRA, and WINPAC) concluded that this could be done should VCI instruct DTRA to do so.) The Chair also stated that it was his understanding that Russia had indicated that if there was no movement toward resolving the suspension issue by mid-Summer, Russia would have to consider full withdrawal from CFE. It was noted that after the December CFE data exchange in which Russia did not participate, Russia sent a one-page notification to other states parties providing aggregate numbers of TLE by type for overall holdings in the area of application and in a few other area covered by "political agreements", such as the Pskov and Kaliningrad oblast, but this was nowhere near to level of detail on completeness required by the Treaty. It was agreed that a meeting of experts to finalize deconfliction of CFE inspection planning would take place on February 20 after completion of the two day meeting of experts on outstanding implementation issues. National preferences for time blocks for CFE inspections for the 13th Residual Year are due to the IS staff by the end of January (the U.S. has already passed these) and if there are conflicts they will need to be deconflicted; the VCC agreed that the staff would issue a short paper proposing not to send partners invitations to pair CFE inspections for the 13th Residual Year since past experience has shown that the few who respond positively only seem to want to follow up if the NATO state pays for any paired inspections. This paper will have a short (one to two week) silence period. --- AOB --- ¶4. (SBU) The Chair reported that Paul In Den Bosh of the NATO IS will be reassigned in September, leaving a VNC opening on the staff. Letters to nations seeking volunteers will be forthcoming. The next VCC meeting was changed to Friday, March 7 (from March 11) in order to precede the beginning of the 13th Residual Year. NULAND