DPRK: COUNCIL EXTENDS DEADLINE FOR PANEL REPORT

UNCLAS USUN NEW YORK 000841 SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PREL PHUM ETTC MCAP KN UNSC SUBJECT: DPRK: COUNCIL EXTENDS DEADLINE FOR PANEL REPORT ¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: On September 14, the UN Secretariat briefed the Council on the establishment of the DPRK Panel of Experts (POE),a body mandated in UNSCR 1874 to help monitor and improve the implementation of UN sanctions imposed on North Korea. The Secretariat explained that only two POE members have yet arrived in New York and that therefore the POE was unable to submit to the Council an interim report by the September 12 deadline requested in UNSCR 1874. The chair of the Council's DPRK Sanctions Committee ("1718 Committee") suggested that the Council give the POE an additional sixty days to submit this report. Japan and the UK supported this proposal and noted that the POE would have a role to play in examining specific sanctions violations. Ambassador Rice also supported the chair's proposal. She noted the POE's important role in helping the Committee investigate a recently-reported sanctions violation and also highlighted the September 3 letter from the DPRK Permanent Representative that the Secur ity Council subsequently referred to the 1718 Committee. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (SBU) On September 14, the UN Secretariat briefed the Security Council in closed consultations about progress in constituting a UN Panel of Experts (POE) for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). UNSCR 1874, adopted June 12, asked the Secretary-General to establish this seven-member team to help monitor and improve implementation of UN sanctions imposed on the DPRK. Similar UN expert already panels exist for all of the most active UN sanctions regime, except for Iran. ¶3. (SBU) Horst Heitmann, Director of the Secretariat's Security Council Affairs Division, explained to the Council that the Council's DPRK Sanctions Committee (the "1718 Committee") had approved a slate of experts on August 7, after which the Secretariat formally contacted the experts and began to finalize logistics details. The panel, he said, included experts from China, France, Japan, Russia, Republic of Korea (ROK),the United Kingdom and the United States. According to Heitmann, only two experts (South Korean and UK) have arrived in New York, with most of the rest arriving before the end of September. Heitmann highlighted the fact that the Secretariat has not received a response to its communications from one of the seven members. (NOTE: The Secretariat has told us privately that the Chinese export �00A;control expert has not responded to its correspondence. USUN has no reason to suspect this delay is politically motivated, but we are nonetheless pressing the Chinese mission to ensure this expert arrives promptly. END NOTE). ¶4. (SBU) Heitmann pointed out that UNSCR 1874 had asked the POE to submit to the Council an interim report on its work within ninety days of the resolution's adoption (i.e., by September 12). Given the delay in the experts' arrival, he said that the Secretariat recommended that the Panel be advised to submit its report at a later date. ¶5. (SBU) Turkish Perm Rep Apakan, the new chair of the 1718 Committee, said he believed an additional sixty days should be sufficient to allow the POE to prepare a comprehensive and detailed report that could be of great value to the Council. He noted that the Committee had envisioned the POE playing an important role in accomplishing tasks set forth in the ambitious program of work that the Committee adopted in July. For example, Apakan observed, it would help the Committee review Member State reporting of their implementation of the relevant measures. ¶6. (SBU) Japanese Perm Rep Takasu supported Apakan's suggestion of giving the POE an additional sixty days to prepare the interim report. He added that he hoped the POE would play a role in investigating specific sanctions incidents. UK Perm Rep Sawers also supported Apakan's proposal and noted that the POE already has important issues to deal with, namely the sanctions violation recently reported to the 1718 Committee by the UAE. ¶7. (SBU) Ambassador Rice regretted that the POE is not yet fully operational, but recognized that the team would need more time to prepare a "comprehensive and detailed interim report, including recommendations on how to improve implementation of the relevant measures." She noted that the POE already has one big item on its agenda: the sanctions violation reported by a Member State (UAE) to the Committee last month. Rice said she hoped the Panel will help the Committee investigate this case thoroughly and recommend ways to detect and prevent future violations. She also highlighted the letter the DPRK Perm Rep had sent the Council on September 3, noting that the Council had referred this letter to the Committee for its review as part of an investigation into the recently-reported sanctions violation. ¶8. (SBU) At the conclusion of the session, Rice, in her capacity as President of the Council, confirmed that the Council agreed with the proposal to grant the POE another sixty days to finish its report. No member objected. She therefore asked the Secretariat to convey this new deadline to the POE. RICE