START FOLLOW-ON NEGOTIATIONS, GENEVA (SFO-GVA-V):

S E C R E T GENEVA 000853 SIPDIS DEPT FOR T, VCI AND EUR/PRA DOE FOR NNSA/NA-24 CIA FOR WINPAC JCS FOR J5/DDGSA SECDEF FOR OSD(P)/STRATCAP NAVY FOR CNO-N5JA AND DIRSSP AIRFORCE FOR HQ USAF/ASX AND ASXP DTRA FOR OP-OS OP-OSA AND DIRECTOR NSC FOR LOOK DIA FOR LEA E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/21/2019 TAGS: KACT MARR PARM PREL RS US START SUBJECT: START FOLLOW-ON NEGOTIATIONS, GENEVA (SFO-GVA-V): (U) FIFTH MEETING OF THE INSPECTION PROTOCOL WORKING GROUP, SEPTEMBER 30, 2009 REF: A. GENEVA 0831 (SFO-GVA-V-039) ¶B. GENEVA 0774 (SFO-GVA-V-007) Classified By: A/S Rose E. Gottemoeller, United States START Negotiator. Reasons: 1.4(b) and (d). ¶1. (U) This is SFO-GVA-V-034. ¶2. (U) Meeting Date: September 30, 2009 Time: 3:00 - 6:10 P.M. Place: Russian Mission, Geneva -------------- SUMMARY -------------- ¶3. (S) The fifth meeting of the Inspection Protocol Working Group (IPWG) focused ON reviewing two sections of Joint Draft Text (JDT): Section II, "Provisions Concerning the Legal Status of Inspectors and Aircrew Members," and Section IV, "Arrangements for Transportation." (Section II of the Inspection Protocol, "Notifications," will be streamlined and moved into the Notifications Protocol.) The approach used by the delegations in addressing these initial two sections has established the basis for the three-tier document desired by the U.S. delegation and now agreed to by the Russian delegation. While key issues remain to be resolved, such as the numbers and types of inspection activities to be conducted, the number of inspectors involved in the various inspection activities and ON the overall inspector list, and whether continuous monitoring of mobile ICBM production facilities is to be included in the treaty, it appears the foundation has been laid to make real progress in future meetings of the IPWG. ¶4. (S) The Russian delegation introduced a new concept related to payments for the cost for military aircraft transporting inspectors to and from the points of entry (POEs) when services are provided at those POEs. Specifically, the inspecting Party would pay the cost of parking and security, in addition to START's traditional payments for the costs of fuel, air navigation, and other airport services. Additionally, the Russian delegation proposed that these services would be paid with a credit card at the time they were provided, rather than after the fact via billed reimbursement in accordance with current START practices. ¶5. (S) As this was the final working group meeting during this round of negotiations, the U.S. and Russian delegations agreed they had a better understanding of each other's views regarding inspection activities, and looked forward to completing the remaining effort. -------------- LITTLE SMALL TALK AFTER THE LAWYERS -------------- ¶6. (S) Col Ilin opened the meeting by stating that the Russian delegation had prepared language addressing the provisions for Air Transportation (see Paragraph 13). Dr. Warner stated the U.S. delegation had tabled a draft text ON September 24, 2009 (Ref A),and proposed reviewing the few remaining issues in Section II, "Provisions Concerning the Legal Status of Inspectors, Monitors, and Aircrew Members." He began by saying he was surprised to find that, after the spirited discussions during the previous session of the IPWG concerning one of the key privileges and immunities issues in the previous meeting, he had discovered that these provisions were contained in Article XI of the Russian-proposed START Follow-on Treaty (Ref B). Warner said he believed that the text ON this issue would be better placed in the Inspection Protocol and noted that there was no disagreement regarding the content. Ilin said he would take a look at the relevant part of Russian-proposed treaty and his delegation would consider the U.S. proposal. -------------- DOUBLE DOUBLE - NO TROUBLE -------------- ¶7. (S) Warner addressed the text related to monitors and continuous monitoring activities in the ground transportation section by stating that such text would essentially be double-bracketed and all text beyond the first paragraph moved to the third level until resolution ON the possible inclusion of continuous monitoring of mobile ICBM production into the treaty was reached. Ilin agreed he did not want to spend time ON editing text associated with supporting continuous monitoring. ¶8. (S) Warner continued to walk through the paragraphs of Section II of the Inspection Protocol, noting that Brown had provided additional input shown in brackets, concerning waiver of immunity from jurisdiction. Ilin said the document would need to be reviewed by the Russian delegation's lawyer, Ms. Kotkova. Ilin proposed that in paragraph 10(f), inspectors, monitors, and aircrew members would not have to pay taxes in addition to customs duties or other related charges, ON their personal use items. The delegations then moved to a discussion of Section IV of the JDT. -------------- COME FLY WITH ME -------------- ¶9. (S) The discussion ON Section V, "Arrangements for Transportation," began with POEs and the related notifications. Ilin agreed with provisions to establish two POEs and proposed to delete the provision requiring an immediate notification of changes to the POE. He stated that neither Russia nor the United States had used this provision to change a POE and believed a 6-month notice of such a change in the form of an update to the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) would be sufficient. Ilin also proposed moving the list of Types of Inspection Airplanes from U.S.-proposed Annex 10 of the Inspection Protocol into the MOU. The Russian Federation would enter "TBD," if such information were to be included in the MOU, since Russian inspection teams are routinely transported to and from the POE by commercial airlines. He also stated that the U.S.-proposed text regarding the filing of flight plans was excessive and, since Russian inspection teams used commercial air, no special flight plan would be required. Warner stated that the U.S. delegation would consider moving the list of military air transport aircraft to the MOU, as well as the recommendations regarding notifications. ¶10. (S) Ilin had referenced the use of Open Skies aircraft in Section II and suggested deleting it from this section. Warner explained that, in principle, the U.S. delegation did not object to this proposal but expressed concerns with the synchronization of flights between the two types of activities, i.e., Open Skies missions and transporting START inspectors. He stated that it would be easy for an Open Skies aircraft to deliver an inspection team in a timely manner. However, since the missions often had differing timelines, the requirement for the two inspection teams to depart from the POE within 24 hours of arriving at that point would be difficult to meet. He explained that the proposed treaty texts of both the U.S. and Russian sides retained the requirement that inspection teams for START Follow-on depart the POE within 24 hours of completing an inspection. He also noted that the Open Skies Treaty contained the same requirement and wanted to ensure that the Russian delegation was aware of the challenges associated with fulfilling this requirement, since there would be a significant possibility that one of the two teams would be forced to depart before the other had returned to the POE. -------------- ADDITION S'IL VOUS PLAIT -------------- ¶11. (S) Ilin introduced a new concept related to payment for services for inspection airplanes while at the POE. He proposed that charges for services rendered to inspection airplanes be paid for at the time the service is provided through the use of a credit card. Ryzhkov stated that it was a practical matter in that the Russian Federation paid for the services up front and then provided a bill to the United States for payment at a later date. A second and more important aspect of the Russian proposal was that parking and security protection costs formerly paid for by the inspected Party under START would be shifted to the inspecting Party. Warner noted that it appeared the Russian Federation was asking the United States to take ON an additional cost obligation. He explained that U.S. inspection teams were obligated to use military aircraft to travel to the Ulan Ude POE because there were no reliable commercial airline service options available into Ulan Ude. As such, the United States would have to pay these additional costs while the Russian Federation, which relies almost solely ON taking commercial flights to the U.S. POEs would not. Warner asked for the Russian proposal in writing in order to better understand it. -------------- WRAP-UP -------------- ¶12. (S) Warner wrapped up the meeting by complimenting both parties for the progress made during the initial meetings of the IPWG. Since it was the last meeting of this session, he wanted to review and identify the key issues remaining to be addressed in future rounds of the negotiations. These included how to characterize the type of inspection activities, resolve the differences ON the number of inspection activities conducted per year, and the size of the overall inspector list and individual inspection teams. He went ON to state that the most formidable challenge ahead appears to lie in the area of verifying heavy bomber armaments. Neither the United States nor the Russian Federation currently keeps nuclear warheads deployed ON bombers ON a day-to-day basis so counting rules that only addressed uploaded armaments would result in a zero count for the numbers of strategic nuclear warheads "deployed" ON heavy bombers. The issues around possible accounting for and verification of armaments in the heavy bmber weapon storage areas constitute a challenge that would need to be discussed in the IPWG when the delegations reconvened. ¶13. Documents exchanged: Begin text of Russian-proposed language ON air transportation: Official Translation To be Handed over ON October 1, 2009 Proposals of the Russian Side for the Wording of the Section "Arrangements for Air Transportation" Paragraph 5. "Each Party may use Open Skies airplanes conducting observation flights over the territory of the inspected Party for transportation of inspectors to and/or from points of entry, subject to compliance by the inspecting Party with the provisions provided for in paragraph 12 of subparagraph (sic) V of Section V of the Annex to the Treaty." Paragraph 12. The inspected Party shall provide parking, security protection, fueling, and air navigation, airport facility, ground technical and commercial services, as well as additional services as requested, for inspection airplanes of the inspecting Party at the point of entry or the airport associated with the facility subject to continuous monitoring or monitored facility. The cost of fueling, air navigation, airport facility, ground technical services and parking and security protection for each such airplane, as well as additional services as requested shall be borne by the inspecting Party. End Text. ¶14. (U) Participants: U.S.: Dr. Warner Mr. Blevins Ms. Bosco Mr. Buttrick Mr. DeNinno Maj Johnson Mr. McConnell Ms. Pura Mr. Smith Ms. Gesse (Int) RUSSIA Col Ilin Mr. Izrazov Mr. Kostuchenko Mr. Leontiev Col Novikov Mr. Pischulov Col Ryzhkov Mr. Shevchenko Mr. Vorontsov Mr. Zaitsev Ms. Komshilova (Int) ¶15. (U) Gottemoeller sends. RICHTER