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