P5 DISCUSSION SHOWS CONTINUED DIVISIONS ON DARFUR

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 USUN NEW YORK 000074 SIPDIS SIPDIS IO AND AF FOR FRONT OFFICE; PLEASE PASS TO SE WILLIAMSON E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/23/2018 TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL SU MOPS UNSC IR SUBJECT: P5 DISCUSSION SHOWS CONTINUED DIVISIONS ON DARFUR Classified By: Political Counselor Jeff DeLaurentis for Reasons 1.4 B/D . ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: P5 Permanent Representatives met on January 22 to discuss next steps on UNAMID deployment. The P5 PermReps agreed to request a briefing from SYG Ban upon his return from the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa and to begin discussion in the Sanctions Committee on responses to the Government of the Sudan's appointment of a Security Council sanctioned individual as advisor to a government minister. Chinese PermRep and Russian PermRep delivered their usual call for continued, quiet engagement with Sudanese President Bashir to further progress with UNAMID deployment. P3 Ambassadors expressed growing frustration with Sudanese non-cooperation with UNAMID deployment. END SUMMARY. -------------- P3 Deliver Message of Impatience to China, Russia -------------- ¶2. (C) At a P5 meeting on next steps for UNAMID deployment on January 22, UKUN PermRep John Sawers commented that the Government of the Sudan (GOS) was still not cooperating with UNAMID's deployment and had recently begun engaging in even more aggressively unhelpful behaviors - threatening to declare the UNAMID Chief of Staff (COS) persona non grata (PNG) and appointing Janjaweed leader Musa Hilal as Advisor to the Minister of Federal Affairs. (NOTE: The UNAMID Chief of Staff, Patrick Davis-Houston, is a UK national. DPKO believes the GOS is targeting Davis-Houston for expulsion because he is one of the most effective UN officials on the ground in Darfur. END NOTE.) Sawers said the Sudanese explanation for why they planned to expel the UNAMID COS - for failing to follow proper visa and appointment procedures - was an obvious attempt to conceal their ongoing efforts to debilitate UNAMID. ¶3. (C) AMB Khalilzad said the Security Council would have to have a more fundamental discussion on how to incentivise Khartoum if Sudan's friends could not convince the GOS to change course. French PermRep Ripert said that the expulsion of the UNAMID COS would amount to an "official rejection of the non-African element of UNAMID" and allowing the GOS to discriminate based on race would endanger future peacekeeping operations in other regions. Ripert argued for enhanced engagement with the African Union to force the Sudanese to meet their commitments. Ripert closed by commenting that the logic of the MINURCAT mission in Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR) had been to facilitate the return of IDPs, an objective that the lack of progress with UNAMID deployment was rapidly making impossible and irrelevant. -------------- China, Russia Respond with More of the Usual -------------- ¶4. (C) Chinese PermRep Wang and Russian PermRep Churkin largely repeated their established position regarding the need for continued engagement with the GOS. Wang referred to the January 1 transfer of authority as indicative of serious progress and said the P5 should wait to see if the GOS actually follows through with the threat to PNG the UNAMID COS and consider the possibility that perhaps the UN had indeed failed to follow agreed visa and appointment procedures. Churkin added that his government has also had difficulty attaining visas in a timely manner from the GOS, which he attributed to incompetence rather than politics. Wang said the best way to make progress with the deployment was to avoid "turning technical issues into political ones" and coordinate P5 bilateral contacts with the GOS. -------------- Next Steps -------------- ¶5. (C) P5 PermReps agreed to request a briefing from SYG Ban following his return from African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, where he will meet with President Bashir. In regard to Janjaweed leader Musa Hilal's appointment as Advisor to the Minister of Federal Affairs, the P5 agreed to refer the issue to the Sanctions Committee for discussion as a preliminary step. USUN NEW Y 00000074 002 OF 002 KHALILZAD