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