MALAYSIA NOTIFIED OF A.Q. KHAN-RELATED SANCTIONS

S E C R E T KUALA LUMPUR 000022 SIPDIS DEPT FOR EAP/MTS AND ISN E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/13/2019 TAGS: PREL PARM EFIN MNUC KNNP MY SUBJECT: MALAYSIA NOTIFIED OF A.Q. KHAN-RELATED SANCTIONS REF: A. STATE 2516 - PRE-NOTIFICATION TO MALAYSIA ¶B. STATE 2508 - A.Q. KHAN NETWORK SANCTIONS Classified By: Political Counselor Mark D. Clark, for reasons 1.4 (b, c and d). ¶1. (S) Polcouns delivered pre-notification of nonproliferation sanctions against two Malaysian citizens and one Sri Lankan resident in Malaysia, related to the A.Q. Khan network, to Malaysian Foreign Ministry Under Secretary (Americas, EU) Mahinder Singh on January 12 at 1600 local time. Polcouns drew from ref A talking points, and also took the opportunity to emphasize the outstanding need for Malaysia to adopt an export control regime. Mahinder posed several basic questions for clarification. He also pressed for information on the specific actions of the Malaysian citizens who are sanctioned. Polcouns responded, per ref A, that we were not in a position to share further details on the sanctions decisions. ¶2. (C) As of January 13, we are not aware of any further reaction by Malaysian government officials. The Embassy received a telephone inquiry on January 13 from an executive of the SCOMI company, whose CEO, Shah Hakim Zain, was sanctioned. The executive asked for factual information on the sanctions, and the Embassy will provide publicly available information in response. We received one international press inquiry. We will update the Department on further developments. RAPSON