(U) START FOLLOW-ON NEGOTIATIONS, GENEVA

S E C R E T GENEVA 000910 SIPDIS DEPT FOR T, VC 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: 10/23/2019 TAGS: KACT MARR PARM PREL RS US START SUBJECT: (U) START FOLLOW-ON NEGOTIATIONS, GENEVA (SFO-GVA-VI): PLENARY MEETING, OCTOBER 19, 2009 REF: A. STATE 105942 (SFO-V-GUIDANCE-005) ¶B. MOSCOW 2600 (SFO-MOS-002) ¶C. GENEVA 744 (SFO-GVA-IV-013) ¶D. MOSCOW 2607 (SFO-MOS-003) Classified By: A/S Rose E. Gottemoeller, United States START Negotiator. Reasons: 1.4(b) and (d). ¶1. (U) This is SFO-GVA-VI-002. ¶2. (U) Meeting Date: October 19, 2009 Time: 11:00 A.M. - 12:50 P.M. Place: U.S. Mission, Geneva -------------- SUMMARY -------------- ¶3. (S) At the October 19 Plenary Meeting chaired by U.S. Head of Delegation (HOD) A/S Gottemoeller and Russian HOD Ambassador Antonov, the U.S. Delegation provided a short recap of the previous week's meetings in Moscow, noting that the coming two weeks will be a decisive round of negotiations. The Russian Delegation affirmed President Medvedev's commitment that the Russian Federation will do its best to sign the treaty by December and its readiness to "reduce more than thrice the number of carriers of strategic offensive weapons." Antonov noted that the two sides still have different approaches to several key issues and confirmed Russia's position that the prospects of a new treaty depend on the settlement of three specific issues: (1) the relationship between strategic offensive and defensive arms; (2) the issue of ICBMs and SLBMs in a non-nuclear configuration; and (3) counting rules in the new treaty. ¶4. (S) Antonov stated his Delegation's readiness to sign the Agreement on Principles and Procedures for Completion of Continuous Monitoring Activities at the Monitored Facility at Votkinsk and associated letters, within the framework of the START Treaty's Joint Compliance and Inspection Commission. Antonov also said that the Russian Ddelegation was open to creating additional ad-hoc working groups of five to seven members to tackle specific issues. ¶5. (S) The Russian Delegation presented a briefing entitled "Comments on the Strengthened Verification Mechanism for the New START Follow-on Treaty" that compared the number of inspections from the START Treaty with the U.S. and Russian proposals in START Follow-on. Russian discussion following the briefing noted that existing verification procedures for strategic offensive arms (SOAs) were very expensive and complicated and tended to disrupt routine military operations. The Russians also noted that the new treaty should provide an opportunity to achieve verification using some of the same procedures implemented under START, but would not provide for verification of 100 percent of all SOAs. A basic principle of the Russian approach in the new treaty was that the Parties will have a small quota of annual inspections that will have to be used more wisely and will cause less disruption at operational bases. According to the Russian view, the Parties should receive more information through the notification regime. In response, the U.S. Delegation questioned if it was the Russian intention to use confidence-building measures to augment the lower number of Russian-proposed inspections to which the Russian Delegation suggested the use of additional, voluntary visits to Russian facilities. ¶6. (S) SUBJECT SUMMARY: Recap of the Moscow Meetings and the Road Ahead; Votkinsk, Former Start Parties, and UN First Committee; Work Plan for the Next 2 Weeks; Ryzhkov's Verification Briefing; Warner's Questions; and More U.S. Questions on Ryzhkov's Briefing. -------------- RECAP OF THE MOSCOW MEETINGS AND THE ROAD AHEAD -------------- ¶7. (S) Gottemoeller began the meeting with a short recap of the previous week's meetings in Moscow, noting that while the meetings there were useful, the next two weeks in Geneva would be even more intensive. In her view, the coming two weeks will be a decisive round of negotiations, after which the heads of the delegations must make a recommendation to their respective leaders on how to complete work on the treaty. ¶8. (S) Antonov replied that it was good to be able to focus on the main issue in the international agenda, the START Follow-on Treaty negotiations. He commented that President Medvedev had just made a statement, prior to his visit to Belgrade on October 20, that the Russian Federation will do its best to complete work on the treaty by December. According to Antonov, Medvedev "reiterated that we are ready to reduce more than thrice the number of carriers of strategic offensive weapons." Antonov noted that Medvedev personally follows very closely what the Russian negotiators are doing, noting that this is both very pleasant but also imposes a high level of responsibility. Medvedev gave very clear and simple instructions--to do all that the Delegation can do to conclude a new treaty with the United States by December. Antonov added that Medvedev had personally taken certain steps of an organizational and financial nature to ensure success. ¶9. (S) Presidential support notwithstanding, Antonov pointed out that the two sides still have different mental and psychological approaches to several key issues in the treaty. He said that, in Russia, "when it's cold, we prefer to be near a heater and do nothing. We have no desire to work when it's cold.' (Begin comment: He was replying to one of Gottemoeller's remarks, in which she had mentioned that with the weather getting colder, it was a spur to working harder. End comment.) Antonov agreed with Gottemoeller's assessment that this round of negotiations will be decisive and that there are essential questions that must be answered in the next two weeks. He confirmed Russia's position that the prospects of a new treaty depend on the settlement of three specific issues: (1) the relationship between strategic offensive and defensive arms; (2) the issue of ICBMs and SLBMs in a non-nuclear configuration; and (3) counting rules in the new treaty. Antonov pointed out that once these issues are resolved there are still several others to settle. -------------- VOTKINSK, FORMER START PARTIES, AND UN FIRST COMMITTEE -------------- ¶10. (S) Antonov noted that the START Treaty's Joint Compliance and Inspection Commission (JCIC) Agreement on Principles and Procedures for Completion of Continuous Monitoring Activities at the Monitored Facility at Votkinsk, and associated letters, would be signed the next day by the U.S. JCIC Representative, Jerry Taylor, and the Russian Representative, Sergey Koshelev (REFS A and B). Antonov said that the Russian Delegation was ready to finalize the Russian-proposed text for a Joint Statement by the Russian Federation and the United States on Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine in connection with the expiration of the START Treaty (REF C). Finally, Antonov expressed regret that he was unable to convince the United States to agree to jointly submit a resolution to the United Nations First Committee on the achievements of the START Treaty. In his view, the United States had made a tactical mistake and someone in Washington had underestimated the value of such a document in the General Assembly. -------------- WORK PLAN FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS -------------- ¶11. (S) Returning to the current session, Antonov said that it was important for everyone to be flexible regarding the meeting schedule. He said he was open to creating additional ad-hoc working groups of five to seven members to tackle specific issues. He added that these groups could be chaired by existing working group chairs or by the Heads of Delegation but, to be successful, these groups would need the support of the other working groups. Gottemoeller said that she had a very positive reaction to Antonov's comments regarding the organizational approach. Antonov said the Russian Delegation was prepared to follow up on the issues raised in Moscow and that he was impressed by the presentations made there by General Orlov and Dr. Warner (REF D). For today, the Russian Delegation was prepared to clarify its position, using charts and tables, on the verification mechanism in the new treaty. These charts were developed after a thorough analysis of the U.S. and Russian verification approaches. Antonov said that there are some other principled differences in the U.S. and Russian approaches in the treaty, for instance, the sides significantly differ on telemetry and on mobile ICBMs. The Russian Delegation is also very interested in a U.S. presentation on new types of non-nuclear strategic offensive arms and how they will be addressed in the new treaty. Antonov added that he had expected such a presentation in Moscow, but the U.S. needed more time; he was glad that the U.S. Delegation agreed to provide the briefing this week. -------------- RYZHKOV'S VERIFICATION BRIEFING -------------- ¶12. (S) Antonov introduced Colonel Ryzhkov, who gave a briefing entitled "Comments on the strengthened verification mechanism for the new START Follow-on treaty." (Begin comment: The briefing consisted of three slides. Slide one: "Verification Mechanisms Under the START Treaty." Slide two: "Verification Mechanism for the New START Follow-on Treaty (U.S. proposals)." and Slide three: "Verification Mechanism for the new START Follow-on Treaty (Russian Federation proposals)." Copies of the slides will be scanned and e-mailed to State. End comment.) Ryzhkov began by noting that existing verification procedures for strategic offensive arms were very expensive and complicated. He said that, under the START Treaty, the Parties verified the number of deployed weapons and ensured that reductions were properly completed. The treaty also provided for information exchanges, inspections, demonstrations, and the use of national technical means of verification--each regulated by procedures. He reminded his audience that START was negotiated in a period of confrontation between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics (USSR) and that, at the time, such an approach was justified. Now, however, the situation was different; we have normal relations and are partners. The Russian Federation was now proceeding from the Joint Understanding signed by Presidents Obama and Medvedev in Moscow on July 6, 2009, which stated that the new treaty would contain "provisions on definitions, data exchanges, notifications, eliminations, inspections and verification procedures, as well as confidence building and transparency measures, as adapted, simplified, and made less costly, as appropriate, in comparison to the START Treaty." ¶13. (S) According to Ryzhkov, the new treaty should provide an opportunity to verify, using some of the same procedures that were used to verify START, but not provide for verification of 100 percent of all SOAs. A basic principle of the Russian approach in the new treaty is that the Parties will have a small quota of inspections that will need to be used more wisely and will cause less disruption at operational bases. The Parties will receive most of their information through the notification regime and, therefore, the Russian side had agreed to retain existing START notifications almost in their entirety. Ryzhkov said he believed that the types of inspections the U.S. proposed were very similar to the Russian proposals. Under the U.S. inspection proposal, warhead, data update, and elimination inspections would be retained. The Russian proposal used different names for those inspections, but the substance was the same. To demonstrate the impact of the existing START inspection regime and the U.S.- and Russian-proposed START Follow-on inspection regimes, Ryzhkov calculated an inspection "load factor" for each of his slides. (Begin comment: The load factor was calculated by dividing the maximum number of inspections called for in a given number of inspectable facilities. End comment.) ¶14. (S) Using this methodology, Ryzhkov calculated that the load factor on the Russian Federation under the existing START Treaty (Slide One) is 0.44. In other words, almost half of Russian facilities are subject to inspection each year. On slide two, he said that the U.S. proposed a two-fold increase in annual inspections of up to 85 each year. This would be a load factor of 0.82. On slide three, he used the Russian approach proposed for START Follow-on and reduced the load factor to 0.29. Ryzhkov then asked, for what purpose does the United States want to strengthen the verification regime. He added that, although he had calculated the load factors for the Russian Federation, if he had done the same calculations for the United States, they would show the same trend. ¶15. (S) Gottemoeller thanked Ryzhkov for his presentation and commented that he had said that notifications would be the basic means for exchanging data on forces according to the Russian proposal. Gottemoeller added that Ryzhkov had mentioned that the Russian approach was almost unchanged from START, but she understood that Russia had eliminated some notifications in its START Follow-on proposal. She asked Ryzhkov to explain what principle guided the Russian decision to eliminate notifications. Ryzhkov responded that the Russian proposal was guided by two principles. First, Russia used the same approach for all types of strategic offensive arms and that, if the United States studied the Russian text on notifications, it would notice that Russia proposed to combine several existing START notifications. The second principle involved adapting new elements of the START Follow-on treaty to allow for the exchange of information on items such as warheads. The Russian-proposed Notification Protocol was based on the experience of implementing the START Treaty. There were approximately 150 notifications in the START Treaty, but only about 30 were actually used. The Russian proposal simply reflected this practice. Gottemoeller then turned to Warner for additional questions on Ryzhkov's presentation. -------------- WARNER'S QUESTIONS -------------- ¶16. (S) Warner noted that Ryzhkov's presentation contained some interesting charts and observations. He was curious, though, as to how Ryzhkov calculated the number of facilities subject to inspection. Warner said that if he asked his staff to develop a similar chart, he would get a substantially different number of facilities. He added that the two sides should compare numbers to get them closer together. Looking to the future, Warner said that he believed there would be about 50 Russian and 20 U.S. facilities subject to inspection under the new START Follow-on treaty. Warner noted that on slide one, both sides agreed that the maximum number of inspections to be conducted in a given year under the START Treaty was 28. On slide two, the United States proposed to continue that same quota. However, on slide three, the Russian side proposed a substantial reduction in the number of inspections to 10. Warner explained that the United States seeks to maintain the very important and useful inspection regime that has worked under START, while the Russian Federation proposes to cut it back drastically. ¶17. (S) Referring to slide two, Warner questioned why Ryzhkov assigned the 17 inspections to the rotation of monitors in Votkinsk. He noted that monitoring was a continuous inspection activity; monitors may come and go, but the activity never stops. Warner then referred to slide two--Elimination Inspections--and noted that the chart indicated up to 40 inspections. He noted that the U.S. proposal on elimination inspections focused on mobile ICBMs and their launchers, not on silo-based ICBMs and on SLBMs. He added that this number was much larger than expected and that Ryzhkov must be anticipating an elimination inspection of every launcher. Warner said it would be useful to understand how Ryzhkov calculated the inspection load, but that the sides need to get the numbers of facilities to be inspected and the anticipated numbers of inspections much closer. ¶18. (S) Ryzhkov responded that the numbers of Russian (then Soviet) facilities used on slide one was based on data as of the signing of the START Treaty; he acknowledged that the numbers would be different now. On slide three, Ryzhkov said that there would be 34 inspectable Russian facilities under START Follow-on. He also noted that the header on column two of slide three should read "Number of RF facilities, including by types of SOAs," vice "Number of U.S. facilities...." adding that the number of U.S. facilities should be provided by the United States. Warner replied that, in his estimation, there would be 18-20 U.S. inspectable facilities at the outset of START Follow-on implementation. With regard to Warners comment on the inspection load factor, Ryzhkov said that the same trends would apply to the U.S. approach and that the number would be higher for U.S. facilities. In response to Warner's question on the number of continuous monitoring rotations, Ryzhkov said that the number 17 included the number of standard rotations and the number of so-called "mini-rotations" each year. On the number of elimination inspections, Ryzhkov said he derived the number 40 from his understanding that the U.S. proposed to conduct elimination inspections for mobile ICBMs, silo-based ICBMs, and for SLBMs. Mr. Elliott responded that it was not the U.S. intention to conduct elimination inspections for silo-based ICBM launchers or for SLBM launchers and that the Russian Delegation had possibly misinterpreted the intent of the draft U.S. Conversion or Elimination Protocol. -------------- MORE U.S. QUESTIONS ON RYZHKOV'S BRIEFING -------------- ¶19. (S) Mr. Trout noted that, on slide one, the number of inspectable Russian facilities as of the beginning of START was 63. He asked Ryzhkov whether he knew what the load factor would be, given the current number of START facilities. Ryzhkov replied that, under the U.S. proposal for START Follow-on, he believed the load number would be 0.7, but that he would verify the actual number and respond later. Mr. Siemon added that Ryzhkov's clarification of Russian views on combining inspections and reducing notifications was useful in bringing the U.S. and Russian positions closer, especially as the Inspection Protocol and Notification Working Groups conclude their work. Siemon noted that, in the Russian-proposed treaty text, Article XI covers inspections and Article IX covers viability and effectiveness and confidence-building measures for the treaty. Siemon asked whether it was the Russian intention to use confidence-building measures to augment the lower number of Russian-proposed annual inspections and visits. If that is the Russian intention, it would be helpful to understand the kinds of confidence-building measures that Russia would include in Article IX. ¶20. (S) Ryzhkov responded that Colonel Ilin was responsible for that issue but, in Ilin's absence, he would respond. Ryzhkov said that, in addition to the quota of ten annual inspections and visits, Russia would also suggest to propose additional visits to Russian facilities on a voluntary basis. He added that, if the United States had questions regarding Russian activities, the Russian Federation could invite U.S. inspectors to visit the facility, as a confidence-building measure. Such visits could be coordinated either through diplomatic channels or through the START Follow-on notification system. Siemon said it would still be helpful to understand the kinds of situations that would need this type of clarification. Ryzhkov replied that, in 2008, the Russians had sent three Topol-M mobile launchers to Red Square in Moscow to participate in a parade. Such a situation could create an ambiguity during an inspection if U.S. inspectors expected to find the missiles at their base and they were not there. In such a situation, Russia could notify the United States that the Topol-M launchers would be in Moscow and invite the military attache to attend the parade. ¶21. (S) Gottemoeller said that Ryzhkov had mentioned that transparency measures in Article IX would be voluntary and governed by the principle of goodwill. She asked Ryzhkov whether there are additional principles that might govern transparency measures, for example, a principle of best efforts to remove concerns. How is the Russian Federation thinking of voluntary measures to remove concerns? Ryzhkov replied that the main principle is an exchange of information based on the mandatory provisions regarding the existence and status of SOAs. He added that it is impossible to stipulate in a treaty all possible situations. Ryzhkov then gave another example of voluntary transparency measures. He said that the Russian Federation had recently informed the United States through diplomatic channels that it intended to change its inspection procedures on the Topol-M variant 2 even though there was no obligation to do so. He added that, taking into account U.S. concerns regarding those inspection procedures, the Russian Federation thought it appropriate to inform the United States of the change. As for the text of Article IX, Ryzhkov said that a working group could address it. Antonov interjected that the Heads of Delegation would decide which working group would work on the text. ¶22. (S) Gottemoeller replied that she wanted to pass her compliments on the efforts of the JCIC to clear questions from its agenda. She pointed out that the recent participation of Russian inspectors in the Minuteman III front section demonstration had made great progress in clarifying a long-standing question. She also noted that the recent inspection at Teykovo, referenced above by Ryzhkov, had clarified U.S. questions on Russian systems. In her view, the JCIC was making great progress of clearing important questions from the agenda and, while the sides may not clear all the issues, their efforts are noteworthy. Gottemoeller said that she hopes to carry the spirit of these efforts into the work on the new treaty. ¶23. (U) Documents exchanged. - Russia: -- Chart entitled Comments on the Strengthened Verification Mechanism for the new START Follow-on Treaty," October 19, 2009. Official translation of the chart will be e-mailed to VCI/SI. ¶24. (U) Participants: U.S. A/S Gottemoeller Amb Ries Lt Col Blevins Mr. Brown Mr. Buttrick Lt Col Comeau Mr. Couch Mr. Dean Mr. Dunn Mr. DeNinno Mr. Elliott Mr. Johnston LT Sicks Mr. Siemon Mr. Smith Mr. Taylor Mr. Trout Dr. Warner Dr. Hopkins (Int) Mr. Shkeyrov (Int) RUSSIA Amb Antonov Mr. Koshelev Mr. Artemyev Ms. Fuzhenkova Mr. Ivanov Ms. Ivanova Col Izrazov Col Kamenskiy Ms. Kotkova Adm Kuznetsov Mr. Leontiev Mr. Luchaninov Col Novikov Gen Orlov Mr. Pischulov Gen Poznihir Col Ryzhkov Mr. Shevchenko Mr. Smirnov Mr. Voloskov Mr. Vorontsov Col Zaytsev Ms. Zharkih Ms. Komshilova (Int) ¶25. (U) Gottemoeller sends. GRIFFITHS