DAYTON ART. IV: 41ST SRCC A COOPERATIVE SUCCESS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 USOSCE 000271

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E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/10/2018
TAGS: PARM PREL KCFE OSCE ZL
SUBJECT: DAYTON ART. IV: 41ST SRCC A COOPERATIVE SUCCESS

REF: PODGORICA 0261

Classified By: Chief Arms Control Delegate Hugh Neighbour for reasons 1
.4(b) and (d)


1. (U) Summary: The 41st Dayton Article IV Sub-Regional
Consultative Commission (SRCC) met October 14-15 in
Montenegro and included the signing of key amendments to the
agreement that formally integrated Montenegro into the treaty
as an independent state party. Four decisions were taken,
which included agreements to publish an operational handbook
for inspectors, to increase the timeframe for arms in the
status for export from two to four years, to use Automated
Data Systems software for developing the Annual Exchange of
Information, and an agreement to the obligatory use of the
Integrated Notification Application (INA) beginning January
1, 2009. (NOTE: Dayton Article IV was established in 1996
and is patterned after the treaty on Conventional Armed
Forces in Europe. It is a successful arms control regime
under the auspices of the OSCE for what now are four states
of the former Yugoslavia: Bosnia and Herzegovina, the
Republic of Croatia, Montenegro, and the Republic of Serbia.
END NOTE.) End Summary

Serbians Show Up As Expected
--------------


2. (C) There was early speculation among the contact group
that Serbia might not send its delegation to the SRCC because
just days before the scheduled SRCC, Montenegro and Macedonia
recognized the independence of Kosovo. This turned out to be
a non-issue as the Kosovo issue was never discussed and
Serbian Ambassador Branka Latinovic and Lieutenant Colonel
Navakovic were present at the opening dinner on the evening
of October 13.


3. (U) The 41st Dayton Article IV SRCC, held in a sea-side
resort on Montenegro's Adriatic coast was chaired by
Montenegrin Ambassador Milorad Scepanovic. Assisting him in
maintaining the flow and direction of the forum was the OSCE
Chairman-in-Office's Personal Representative (PR) for Dayton
Article IV Brigadier General Costanzo Periotto. The contact
group was fully attended by a representative each from
France, Germany, Italy, Russia, the UK and the U.S.


4. (SBU) The SRCC began with opening remarks and the adoption
of the past minutes. The adoption of one set of minutes in
particular was initially postponed due to disagreements over
the language and edits in the text. This led to a lengthy
discussion on the need for specificity in the text of the
minutes, illustrated when the delegation from Bosnia and
Herzegovina (BiH) corrected the Montenegrin delegation's work
on the minutes by requesting that its armed forces be
referred to in the minutes as the "Armed Forces of Bosnia and
Herzegovina" and not simply as the Bosnian Army.

Amendments and Signing Ceremony: No Media Please
-------------- ---


5. (SBU) The Parties then turned to the business of a
ceremonial signing of several Amendments to the Agreement.
The Amendments, once signed, codified Montenegro's status as
an individual Party to the Article IV agreement. The
Parties previously accepted Decision 1/39 in October 2007,
which endorsed a July 2007 bilateral agreement between Serbia
and Montenegro, dividing Article IV armament entitlements

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between the two Parties and allowing Montenegro to
participate in the agreement as a party separate from Serbia.


6. (C) Before the Parties were able to relocate to a nearby
room for the formal signing ceremony as planned, a small
group of reporters, including one carrying a large video
camera, streamed into the ongoing SRCC session. Serbian
Ambassador Latinovic quickly protested the media's presence,
saying that the Parties had not been notified that the media
had been invited. She asked the chairman to order all press
representatives to leave the room, which they then did.
(COMMENT: The Serbian Ambassador was visibly agitated at this
development, almost certainly because she was nearly
photographed and videotaped representing Serbia in a
diplomatic event in Montenegro just days after Montenegro
recognized Kosovo's independence. Serbia, in response, had
expelled Montenegro's Ambassador to Belgrade. END COMMENT.)


7. (SBU) Soon after the controversy over the media, the
Amendments were signed by all Parties in a nearby room with
smiles and champagne, but the only fanfare came from the
snapping of pictures from representatives' personal digital
cameras. (NOTE: On October 13, an estimated 10,000 people in
the Montenegrin capital of Podgorica protested Montenegro's
October 9 decision to recognize Kosovo's independence
(reftel). The pro-Serb rally, which was extensively covered
in the local media, turned violent and led to 30 people
suffering minor injuries. END NOTE.)

Decision 1/41: Though We Agree, Let's Continue To Disagree
-------------- --------------


8. (C) The next agenda item involved an issue that at first
appeared to most as minor but which soon elicited testy back
and forth disagreements, many of which were initiated by the
Serbian delegation. The issue involved the status of
publication of an operational handbook for Dayton Article IV
inspectors and a companion publication of the so called
"compendium," which is a brief written history of the
agreement itself.


9. (C) The Serbian position, based on the text of a previous
decision, 3/40, was that both documents were to be part of a
single publication. The other parties, including the PR
recognized that both would not be ready for publication at
the same time and General Periotto recommended as a
compromise for the Parties to publish the operational
handbook first, because it was nearly completed, and to
continue work on the compendium. After a hour of heated back
and forth bickering about positions and which delegation was
being more flexible, the Serbians eventually agreed to the
compromise saying "I believe this shows maximum flexibility
unlike the Croatian decision." The Chair, trying to minimize
the growing tensions, interrupted with the statement that
"each party has the right to remain inconclusive." Despite
the appearance of almost complete agreement among the parties
on the issue, the BiH delegation proposed that discussion on
the issue be suspended until the next morning because "the
morning is a much smarter period." All agreed to delay the
dialogue on the publication until the next day, and the
following morning the decision was quickly adopted with no
substantive debate or disagreement.

The Other Three Decisions
--------------


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10. (SBU) The next decision, 2/41, increasing the timeframe
for "arms in the status for export" from two to four years
was agreed to very quickly. The only dissenting opinion
during discussions came from the PR's office. Retired German
Lieutenant Colonel Helmut Kruse offered his opinion that
during the last SRCC, Decision 4/40 increased the timeframe
for the same armaments from one to two years and now that all
wanted a four-year timeframe, he questioned whether this met
the legally binding rule of being a temporary timeframe.
Montenegro weighed in saying that it was now at the end of
the existing two year limit and did not want weapons
currently in export status to be discounted if the timeframe
were to be surpassed. General Periotto allowed that four
years may not be temporary but that if all the Parties were
happy with the decision, then he was happy with it as well.


11. (C) The third and fourth decisions were adopted with
little debate. Decision 3/41 involved agreement on the use
of Automated Data Systems (ADS) for Dayton Article IV data
exchanges. (NOTE: ADS is currently used to support data
exchanges for the CFE treaty, the Vienna Document 1999, and
the Global Exchange of Military Information. END NOTE.) The
only concern was raised privately among members of the
contact group and it regarded the source of the funding, a
concern that went unresolved after a brief sidebar between
the contact group and members of the PR's office.


12. (SBU) Decision 4/41 agreeing to the obligatory use of the
Integrated Notification Applications (INA) for all Parties
beginning January 1, 2009 met with only brief concern from
the BiH delegation, which wanted to ensure language
permitting alternate means of communication if the INA
process were to break down. (NOTE: The purpose of the INA,
which is already in use for inspections and activity related
to the CFE treaty, the Open Skies treaty, and the Vienna
Document 1999, is to ensure a direct communications link
between the state parties to send and receive messages and
notifications for Dayton Article IV operations. END NOTE.)
German Lieutenant Colonel Detlef Hempel from the PR's Office
responded that there was no need for specific language in the
decision regarding this concern: should there be a technical
problem with the INA, it was expected that all would use a
telephone, fax, or other means to ensure effective
communication.

Let's Not Actually "Involve" the Media
--------------


13. (C) The Parties then discussed the future role of the
media in SRCC affairs. Having had the SRCC forum marred by
the presence of the media the previous day, which the
Montenegro chair admittedly had not cleared with the rest of
the delegations, the Parties found renewed reason to settle
on an approach to working with the media. Serbia and Croatia
were unified in the position that SRCC meetings are closed
meetings of experts and therefore should never be open to
media coverage. Ambassador Latinovic recommended that the
Parties refer to the act of "informing" the media of SRCC
matters rather than "introducing" the media into Article IV
affairs. She further suggested that a system for handling
the media was not needed and that it should be dealt with on
a case-by-case basis. Latinovic ended her statement by
regretfully relaying to the Parties that her name had been
mentioned in the press on October 14 as being the individual
responsible for denying media coverage of the previous day's
SRCC activities.

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The Inspection Regime Still Works
--------------


14. (SBU) The final issues discussed were an analysis of the
inspection regime for the first half of 2008 and a review of
the minimum number of quotas for the 2009 inspection regime.
The Parties expressed unanimous satisfaction with the
inspection regime thus far in 2008. Highlighting improvement
in the process from the previous year, Montenegro summarized
its activity in the first half of the year as having
implemented two passive inspections and three active
inspections in Serbia and BiH and saying it had no disputable
issues. Discussion then turned to the issue of quotas for

2009. Initially BiH, Croatia, and Montenegro favored
maintaining for 2009 the same number of quotas existing in
the 2008 inspection regime. Serbia requested a slight
decrease in the number of quotas reducing its passive quota
from seven to six and Montenegro's active quota from four to
three. All Parties then unanimously agreed to this change and
the change was adopted.


15. (U) General Periotto stated that his office planned to
organize an exhibition in February 2009 to mark the success
of the Dayton Article IV agreement, with an emphasis on the
completion of the 300th inspection. He recommended an
opening ceremony which would include speeches by him and the
future presiding chair from Croatia and a photo presentation
of the 12 years of implementation of the agreement. All
agreed to the idea and to support the effort.

Future Meetings
--------------


16. (U) The next Dayton Article IV Extraordinary Consultative
Commission will take place December 11 at the Hofburg Palace
in Vienna, Austria with Croatia as the next chair. All
Parties also agreed to February 18, 2009 as the date of the
next permanent working group and as the date of the proposed
Dayton Article IV exhibition.
General Periotto and the Montenegrin Ambassador then made a
joint statement they referred to as a serious one: that
everyone must watch the World Cup soccer match that evening
between Italy and Montenegro. Unsurprisingly, Italy defeated
Montenegro 2-1 in an uneventful contest.
SCOTT