DPKO ON UNMIK TRANSITION: WE ARE LEAVING, WHERE'S

C O N F I D E N T I A L USUN NEW YORK 000706 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/06/2018 TAGS: PREL PGOV UNMIK SUBJECT: DPKO ON UNMIK TRANSITION: WE ARE LEAVING, WHERE'S EULEX? Classified By: Ambassador Alejandro Wolff for Reasons 1.4 B/D. ¶1. (C) SUMMARY AND ACTION REQUEST. Senior UN officials insist to USUN that UNMIK is on track for a minimum 70 percent drawdown by October, 2008. They say further drawdown this year or next depends on EULEX willingness to deploy because the UN and EU have agreed that UNMIK will not withdraw from Serb-majority areas until EULEX is ready to deploy in them. DPKO claims to have offered EULEX whatever UN facilities it wants and professes bewilderment as to why EULEX has yet to deploy a single police officer. DPKO offers USUN a one-time reading of the final reconfiguration plan. USUN invites Department's articulation of particular reconfiguration concerns for reference during that session. See action request para 5. END SUMMARY AND ACTION REQUEST. ¶2. (C) Deputy SYG Chief of Staff Kim Won-soo and DPKO's Director for Europe David Harland (protect both) recently told Ambassador Wolff and DepPolCouns, respectively, that UNMIK has launched a 120-day drawdown that would leave the mission at 70 percent or less of its June 28 strength. Kim said that Nick Haysom of the Secretary-General's office would serve as Principal Deputy SRSG in Pristina for August, focusing on reconfiguration implementation, and be replaced for the month of September by Harland. Another New York DPKO staff member would replace Harland in October. (Harland is hopeful that a longer-term PDSRSG will be appointed before he has to report to Pristina.) ¶3. (C) Kim and Harland separately insisted that the 70 percent drawdown aspect of UNMIK's reconfiguration is broadly unrelated to EULEX's deployment and entered a 120-day implementation phase upon receipt of a code cable from New York on June 28. Harland said UNMIK residual presence would be largely in Kosovo Serb-majority areas where the UN and EU had agreed that UNMIK would not redeploy until EULEX is fully ready to deploy. He expressed great frustration at EULEX's failure to date to deploy and warned that we are stumbling into a "partition by organization" that may leave UNMIK in Serb areas and EULEX in Albanian areas. He had though high praise for EULEX head Yves de Kermabon, who he said was himself frustrated with Brussels's lack of organization. Harland ridiculed what he said were still technically the EU's "operating presumptions" regarding EULEX -- a Security Council resolution, Belgrade's cooperation, and UMMIK turnkeying its entire operation over to EULEX. He quoted with approval Karl Bildt's comment that these presumptions had been from the outset "laughably stupid." ¶4. (C) On UNMIK-EULEX transition discussions, Harland said significant progress was being made and defended the UN's spirit of cooperation which he said included a recent offer, accepted by EULEX, to put the SRSG's own physical office at the disposition of EULEX. He said EULEX, on the other hand, seems incapable of deploying even a single police officer until every aspect of its full deployment has been resolved. He contrasted the Office of the Civilian Representative's approach to deployment that included building its own facility with EULEX's evident passivity that recently led it to decline 120 vehicles offered by UNMIK on terms previously negotiated. He said he had advised EULEX to begin deployment in Kosovo's southeast, largely untouched by the war, as a confidence-building measure but had little hope deployment would begin anywhere. ¶5. (C) Asked for copies of the final reconfiguration plan, Harland resisted, saying that the UN had to be careful about agreeing to individual UNSC member review of this document when the UNSC's inability to provide guidance to the SYG was the trigger Ban had cited for unilaterally ordering reconfiguration. Harland eventually offered to allow USUN a one-time reading of the reconfiguration plan but added that his office would be unable to subsequently accept suggestions from Washington or other UNSC capitals for revisions. ACTION REQUEST: USUN would welcome Department's guidance on areas of reconfiguration questioning for DPKO during this one-time review of the reconfiguration plan. END ACTION REQUEST. Wolff