UNODC ASSURANCE ON LEAHY VETTING FOR U.S. FUNDS

UNCLAS USNATO 000270 SENSITIVE SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/RPM, SCA, AND INL E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ASEC PREL NATO SNAR RS AF ZK SUBJECT: UNODC ASSURANCE ON LEAHY VETTING FOR U.S. FUNDS FOR NRC COUNTERNARCOTICS PROJECT ¶1. (SBU) Ambassador Daalder received a letter dated June 16 from James Callahan, the Central Asia Regional Representative for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), regarding the distribution of USG funds within the NATO-Russia Council Counter Narcotics program. In the letter, Callahan assures the Ambassador that U.S. funds will be spent in a manner consistent with applicable U.S. laws, specifically the so-called "Leahy Vetting" requirements. (Note: Mission scanned and e-mailed the letter to EUR-RPM.) ¶2. (SBU) The text of Callahan's letter is reproduced below: BEGIN TEXT 16 June 2009 Dear Mr. Ambassador, I am writing in regard to UNODC's implementation of the NATO-Russia Council "Pilot Project on Training of Central Asian and Afghan Law Enforcement Personnel," known in UNODC nomenclature as Project XAC/197. UNODC fully understands the requirement under US legislation and security assistance policy to vet the names of persons who will be trained under USG funding in counter-narcotics capacities. We are making every effort and will step up those efforts to assure that the requirements are met for programs involving US funding. For your information, all the nominations in the Central Asian countries and Afghanistan go through and must have approval of two or three governmental agencies, a time-consuming bureaucratic system but we continue to work with the governments to require timely submissions of their nominees. UNODC will assure that US contributions to the XAC/197 projects will only be spent on training events for which vetting has been completed as required by the US Government. We will segregate US funds from NRC contributions from other NRC member countries and provide separate accountings of expenditures of US funds. Should situations arise where vetting cannot be completed due to failure of beneficiary countries to provide participant details in time for proper vetting, contributions from other NRC countries will be used to cover the costs of those training events. UNODC will continue to work with beneficiary countries to obtain timely information and minimize situations where vetting cannot be performed. For future pledge letters pertaining to funds from the USA on which there are potential concerns about vetting, training held at Domodedovo and TADOC, etc., NATO/NRC could insert conditions as needed to cover these areas. UNODC would then have to function as described above, taking care that US funds would be used only on permitted events for which vetting could be completed. I hope that this letter satisfies the Department of State's requirements and stand ready to discuss any other issues related to the US participation in the NATO-Russia Council project. Best regards, /S/ James Callahan Regional Representative for Central Asia United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime H.E. Ivo H. Dalder Ambassador, US Permanent Representative to NATO United States Mission Brussels, Belgium END TEXT HEFFERN