DUTCH INVITE CHINA TO GLOBAL INITIATIVE TO COMBAT

UNCLAS BEIJING 000096 SIPDIS DEPT FOR EAP/CM, ISN, PM AND EUR DOE FOR NNSA ADA JOSEPH KROL E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PREL PGOV PTER MNUC MARR MASS CH RS NL SUBJECT: DUTCH INVITE CHINA TO GLOBAL INITIATIVE TO COMBAT NUCLEAR TERRORISM PLENARY IN THE HAGUE ¶1. On January 13, PolOff accompanied Arjen van den Berg, Political Counselor at the Dutch Embassy in Beijing, and Andrey Chernyshov, Second Secretary at the Russian Embassy in Beijing, in a meeting with MFA Arms Control and Disarmament Department Missile Division Deputy Director Wang Daxue. Van den Berg presented a diplomatic note to Wang, inviting China to send participants to the Fifth Plenary Meeting of the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism (GICNT) at The Hague June 16-17. Van den Berg emphasized that the meeting would be jointly chaired by the United States and Russia and that the Dutch delegation would be led jointly by the Dutch Foreign and Justice Ministries. ¶2. Wang Daxue thanked van den Berg for the invitation and said he would share it with his superiors. Unofficially, Wang noted that China was a member of the GICNT, had attended each previous plenary meeting and would, in all likelihood, attend the June meeting in The Hague. Wang assured van den Berg that China supports non-proliferation goals and has worked closely multilaterally and bilaterally to meet common objectives. He made special mention of successful non-proliferation workshops China conducted with the United States in 2007. Wang promised to relay a formal response to the invitation to the Dutch Embassy at an appropriate time. Randt