U/S TAUSCHER-DFM RYABKOV DECEMBER 7 MEETING

C O N F I D E N T I A L MOSCOW 003122

SIPDIS

GENEVA FOR JCIC, DEPT FOR T

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/27/2019
TAGS: KNNP KACT PARM PREL START MCAP RS IR
SUBJECT: U/S TAUSCHER-DFM RYABKOV DECEMBER 7 MEETING

Classified By: POL M/C Susan Elliott for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (C) Summary: U/S Ellen Tauscher met with DFM Sergey
Ryabkov in Moscow on December 7, 2009 to address P-5
coordination in advance of the NPT Review Conference and
missile defense cooperation. They also discussed how to
establish a political framework that would allow practical
steps in strategic cooperation, including on missile defense.
U/S Tauscher gave Ryabkov a paper on a missile defense
cooperation agreement. Ryabkov said he had hoped to have a
paper for her, but it was still in interagency coordination
and would be provided later. End summary.

Fuel Banks
--------------


2. (C) Ryabkov expressed deep appreciation for U.S. support
for the Angarsk fuel bank proposal. U/S Tauscher described
the IAEA Board approval of the Russian Angarsk proposal as a
valuable part of a larger effort that should include action
next spring on the IAEA NTI (Nuclear Threat Initiative) fuel
bank proposal.

NPT
---


3. (C) U/S Tauscher noted importance of projecting to the
international community that U.S. and Russia working together
in advance of the NPT Review Conference. We need to work on
a joint P-5 statement. We think the British proposal a good
starting point. Egyptian actions to push their agenda on the
1995 Middle East resolution will make it difficult to get a
good result in the Review Conference.


4. (C) Ryabkov welcomed the approach of the new
administration, singling out President Obama's Prague speech.
However, we had to be careful not to have an "unbearably"
high level of ambition. We must determine what can be done
in the short and medium-term, and what had to be tackled
long-term. (Note: this is a theme that Ryabkov returned to
several times. While the GOR recognizes the bold approach of
the U.S. to improve relations, Russia needed a more phased,
step-by-step approach).


5. (C) Ryabkov said the NPT was too important to fail. The
U.S. and Russia should work together before the conference to
ensure success. He asked what the impact of the Nuclear
Posture Review would be on the U.S. approach at the Revcon.
DASD Celeste Wallander said the review was on schedule for an
early February 2010 release. The NPR was based on a
comprehensive process that benefited from bilateral
consultations, although it was premature to discuss the
results of the review before its release.


6. (C) Ryabkov also noted the "time compression" for Senate
ratification of several treaties, including START follow-on
and CTBT, as had been raised earlier in the discussion on
START. Tauscher replied that the Administration was
preparing in many ways for Senate ratification of the CTBT,
including the Nuclear Posture Review, stockpile stewardship,
a new NIE, and a National Academy of Sciences study due
February 2010. We would make a decision to go forward with
ratification once we are ready and have the votes.


7. (C) Tauscher and Ryabkov agreed that while the Chinese
wanted to wait until after the April Global Nuclear Security
Summit to focus on a P5 statement for the Revcon that was too
late if we are to have a useful substantive statement.
Rozhkov warned against including too many topics into the
final communique, specifically military or HEU conversion.
The negative guarantees issues and the 13-step program were
important to the NAM (Non-Aligned Movement). He pressed on
the Russian proposals for the P5 statement, namely the
language on a WMD-free Middle East, saying that if we could
jointly work this issue with the Egyptians and other, we
could overcome many of the problems.


8. (C) Tauscher countered that she had just visited both
Israel and Egypt, and found that the Egyptians admit
privately that the real problem was not an Israeli program
that might or might not exist, but the Iranian nuclear
program. The threat of proliferation and a Middle East
nuclear arms race arose from Iranian actions, not Israeli
actions. We needed to find a way to address the 1995
resolution in a manner acceptable to Egypt that can command
consensus as well. She talked to Egyptian Foreign Minister
Aboul Gheit about drafting language. This would not be easy,
but was important. Regarding the Russian proposals in their
paper, there were some non-starters, such as proposing that
all nuclear facilities in the region be under safeguards.


9. (C) Tauscher said withdrawal from the NPT would be an
important issue at the Revcon. Countries had a right to
withdraw, but this right should not be abused by parties that
violate the Treaty. We would like to work with Russia to
come up with ways to prevent the abuse of the NPT as a way to
avoid accountability. Ryabkov said we had to use a common
sense approach, in context of UNSCR 1887. He said this issue
would be controversial, and we had to avoid re-opening the
NPT. Tauscher agreed re-opening the NPT would be
counterproductive, and concurred in looking at making good
use of UNSCR 1887.

Iran
--------------


10. (C) Tauscher thanked the Russian side for active
participation in the Teheran Research Reactor (TRR) proposal,
particularly Russia's assumption of responsibility for
removal of LEU from Iran and delivery of finished fuel.
Ryabkov acknowledged the close cooperation on the TRR, but on
the larger issue of the Iranian nuclear program he noted that
(in his opinion),Iran was acting within the limits of its
safeguards agreement; what was unclear was its adherence to
additional protocol. In absence of that adherence, its
peaceful intentions were unclear; on the other hand, there
was no evidence of a military dimension of the Iranian
program either. If the U.S. insisted on pressing ahead with
strong pressure before NPT conference, it would derail the
Revcon. Yet it was hard to see a compromise. We would make
it clear that the nuclear option is not acceptable for Iran,
but in a way that was broadly acceptable to all parties
including the Arab states.


11. (C) Tauscher noted it was clear that, as stated in the
Qom resolution, Iran continued to lie and obfuscate. We have
been trying to engage the Iranians for a long time. Now the
IAEA has adopted a strong resolution, and forwarded it to the
UNSC. The IAEA has uncovered extensive evidence that the
Iranian program has a military dimension, and Iran has
refused to cooperate with the IAEA to resolve these concerns.

Nuclear Suppliers Group
--------------


12. (C) Ryabkov said Russia favored moving straight to the
plenary with a cleared text. NSG Consultative Group chair
Goorevich would be circulating a text in the next few days.
We needed to keep the Latin Americans from opening it up.
The Turks could be problematic. Rozhkov noted that at the
last consultative group meeting, the Belarusians had had
problems, but the Russians resolved the issue. Timbie said
that the text of the strengthened guidelines has been
completed, but it would take work with the Turks and South
Africans to resolve political issues they had raised. Brazil
and Argentina were less likely to be problematic.

Missile Defense
--------------


13. (C) Tauscher gave Ryabkov a paper outlining a proposed
Ballistic Missile Defense Cooperation Agreement. She told
Ryabkov such an agreement could provide the political basis
for going forward with practical steps together on missile
defense cooperation.


14. (C) Ryabkov thanked Tauscher for the paper and promised a
response. He said there were opportunities for cooperation
in the missile defense area once we have found the political
premises. As U/S Tauscher had said, we need the political
before the practical. He mentioned development of theater
missile defense at the NATO-Russia Council as an example of
what would be possible. Ryabkov said he had hoped to have a
paper of his own with Russian views, but it was still in
interagency clearance, and he would provide it "soon." In
the meantime, we could proceed from the Joint Threat
Assessment.


15. (C) Ryabkov said the Deputy Secretary of the Russian
Security Council Nazarov would be in Washington to lead the
Russian side in the Joint Threat Assessment session on
December 22 in Washington, and asked that Tauscher meet with
Nazarov and help arrange other meetings for him. She replied
that she would be on travel that day, and undertook to
E
arrange for other appropriate officials to meet with him.


16. (C) Ryabkov said the Russian side needed to further
develop its thoughts on missile defense cooperation, and
until that was done, it would be hard to agree to measures
big or small, such as JDEC, although we could work together
on a mutual assessment of threats. He noted the discussion
at the NATO-Russia Council of theater missile defense, adding
that Russian ideas needed to be taken into account. Russia
needed to better define the political premises that would
undergird extensive cooperation on missile defense.


17. (C) Tauscher said that we should leverage each other's
excellent technology against missile threats. She hoped we
could decide on areas to work together, such as data
exchange, sensor cooperation, leading eventually to joint
missile defense architectures. She expressed the hope that
there could be an experts meeting in Colorado Springs early
in 2010.


18. (C) DAS Frank Rose outlined a possible BMD cooperation
agreement and handed over a proposed text (in English and
Russian) for a legally binding executive agreement of ten
years' duration which could be extended. It would not be a
traditional arms control agreement that would limit the
parties' ability to create missile defenses, but rather
concentrate on consultations and confidence building measures
and joint activities. DASD Wallander noted that the U.S. is
talking to its NATO allies about missile defenses and wanted
to include Russian ideas and interests in the process.


19. (C) Ryabkov cited the collaborative process over Qom as a
model. Our experts should discuss these issues during the
joint threat assessment, for example, on the "hundreds" of
short- and medium-range missiles in Iran? Tauscher said that
when Nazarov came to Washington, we would want to share some
of our intelligence community assessments with him, but
looked forward to hearing Russian assessments.


20. (C) U/S Tauscher encouraged moving away from mutual
assured destruction and aim instead for mutual assured
stability. Under this approach, we could emphasize areas
where we can cooperate. Agreement on such an approach as a
political matter could help guide future discussions between
us. Once we have agreement on a political context, experts
could follow up on practical steps. Potential areas where
progress might be made in a framework of mutual assured
stability include a missile defense cooperation agreement,
steps to address non-strategic nuclear weapons, and European
security cooperation to resolve the impasse caused by
Russia's decision not to implement the CFE Treaty. Ryabkov
responded positively and looked forward to further
elaboration of the concept of mutual assured stability.


21. (SBU) Participants:

U.S.

Under Secretary Ellen Tauscher
Ambassador John Beyrle
DAS Frank Rose, State
DASD Celeste Wallander, DOD
RADM Randall Hendrickson, MDA
Senior Advisor James Timbie, State
Jon Shearer, DOE-Moscow
Isabella Detwiler, Embassy ESTH
Jules Silberberg, Embassy POL

Russia

DFM Sergey Ryabkov
Oleg Burmistrov, acting director, MFA North America
Oleg Rozhkov, deputy Director, MFA DVBR
Aleksey Ubeyev, deputy director, Rosatom
Aleksandr Novikov, deputy chief, treaties branch, MOD GUMVS
Oleg Khodyrev, Security Council
Vladimir Yermakov, section head, MFA DVBR
Oleg Postnikov, counselor, MFA DVBR
Aleksandr Shilin, counselor, MFA North America
Denis Kolesnikov, attache, MFA North America
Dmitriy Gusev, first secretary, MFA


22. (U) Under Secretary Tauscher's office has reviewed this
cable.
Rubin