NORWAY PESSIMISTIC ON HRC GOLDSTONE RESOLUTION

C O N F I D E N T I A L OSLO 000601 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/01/2019 TAGS: PHUM PREL KPAL IS NO SUBJECT: NORWAY PESSIMISTIC ON HRC GOLDSTONE RESOLUTION OUTCOME, OPTIMISTIC ON FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION RESOLUTION REF: EMAILED POINTS FROM EUR DAS QUANRUD 9/30/09 Classified By: Charge d'affaires, a.i. Cherrie S. Daniels for reasons 1 .4(b) and (d) ¶1. (C) Summary: Charge d'affaires, a.i., met with Anne Merchant, Senior Advisor and coordinator ad interim for UN Human Rights Council (HRC) issues for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA),on October 1 to discuss emailed points both on the Goldstone Report and Freedom of Expression resolutions currently under discussion in the HRC. Merchant was optimistic that consensus could be reached on the Freedom of Expression resolution. She was not hopeful about the possibility for reaching consensus on the Goldstone report resolution. She appealed for even closer cooperation between the U.S. delegation in Geneva and the Norwegian representative there in the coming 24 hours, and said Norway would work with us to find common ground if it was reachable; but she was not committal about Norway voting against it if hard negotiations did not lead to language that meets the parameters laid out in the USG points. End Summary. ¶2. (C) On the Goldstone report resolution, Merchant said that the U.S. and Norway are working closely together, but our positions remain "quite far apart." She appealed for even closer coordination between the U.S. delegation and the Norwegian MFA representative on the ground in Geneva, Vebjorn Heines. He is the one who can digest Norway's and the USG's "red lines" and find any common ground that is to be found, she emphasized. Though Norway understood our points last week and again today about USG concerns regarding many elements of the Goldstone report and its recommendations, Norway does not fundamentally agree with the U.S. statement in Geneva that the Goldstone report is "deeply flawed." Aside from differing positions on individual paragraphs of text in the pending resolution, Merchant said her impression from Mr. Heines this morning was that the negotiations are not going well and the atmosphere does not look promising. ¶3. (C) Merchant added a general comment that there was a lack of transparency on multiple fronts in the HRC on the Goldstone debate. Norway hoped to work toward a more transparent process for HRC debates in the future. She regretted that while there have been several small group meetings (including of the Western Europe and Others Group/WEOG, which she said Norway currently heads),there has not yet been one "open, transparent meeting" to hash out common positions. Moreover, "the EU is focusing most of its energy on getting a common position among its 27 members." In response to our points about following up the report only in the HRC, Merchant asked how we would deal with the fact that issues of international humanitarian law were implicated in the report, but lie outside the HRC's mandate. We emphasized again the importance the USG places on credible domestic processes and investigations to follow up the serious allegations in the report. Merchant highlighted that, for its part, Norway wanted to "protect, defend, and expand" the reach of international humanitarian law. While agreeing that much of the debate within the HRC was toxic and not very useful for the future of relaunching talks for a two state solution - a goal Norway shares with us - she avoided committing Norway to voting against a biased resolution or one that endorses the report and/or recommendations in their entirety. Merchant said that if the USG wants to know the exact parameters or red lines of the Norwegian policy toward the Report and a resolution on it, as approved by Foreign Minister Stoere himself, we need only examine the intervention made by Norway earlier this week in Geneva (HRC ¶12. Item 7). She provided Charge a copy of the text, which post will fax to IO/RHS Cari Enav. ¶4. (C) On a positive note, Merchant repeated that Norway truly does welcome the Obama administration's re-engagement with the UN and the UNHRC, and she hoped that the U.S. and Norway would work even more closely together in the negotiations in Geneva in the final hours of this debate and in future such situations. "We see ourselves as the mediator, the one who can help find common ground on language wherever it exists." Her bottom line appeared to be, "approach us and use us to work for specific text and a better atmosphere in the HRC, but please do it directly in Geneva and New York, not in capitals, so it can be done in real time." More Positive on Freedom of Expression Resolution -------------- ¶5. (C) Charge made the points emphasizing that we were working for an acceptable consensus resolution on Freedom of Expression and were looking to Norway to help steer the EU away from calling a vote. Merchant agreed to relay our concern to Vebjorn Heines, Norway's MFA HRC coordinator who is in Geneva for this week's talks. Her assessment, after talking with Heines today, was that the HRC would, in fact, come to consensus on Freedom of Expression. This issue was "at the top of Norway's agenda," she said. The MFA's absolute redline is that Norway will not accept any text that could be construed as protection of "religions" rather than individuals. The latest draft of OP4 that she saw from Geneva this morning met Norway's parameters, and they would work with the U.S. delegation to try to achieve consensus. (The underlined clause in her updated version of OP4 from October 1 now reads: "as well as concern of racial and religious stereotyping around the world..." which removes the word negative, compared to the 9/30/09 EUR email to post.) DANIELS