Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
10VALLETTA69
2010-02-02 16:30:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Valletta
Cable title:  

MALTA SUPPORTIVE ON IRAN SANCTIONS, DATA SHARING,

Tags:  AF ECON ECPS EUN IR KCRM KHLS KPAO KTIA MT 
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VZCZCXRO4396
PP RUEHAG RUEHROV RUEHSL RUEHSR
DE RUEHVT #0069/01 0331630
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 021630Z FEB 10
FM AMEMBASSY VALLETTA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 2536
INFO RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RHEFHLC/DEPT OF HOMELAND SECURITY WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHDC PRIORITY
RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEAWJA/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHDC PRIORITY
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 VALLETTA 000069 

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR NEA/FO ECATALANO AND ISN/RA RNEPHEW
DEPARTMENT ALSO FOR S/CT PSCHULTZ, EUR/ERA ANARDI, L/LEI
KPROPP, A/GIS/IPS/PRV CTHOMAS, PM/SNA KAMEND AND USEU/ECON
LSNYDER
JUSTICE FOR TBURROWS AND MWARREN
DHS FOR MSCARDAVILLE AND JKROPF AND JBEDNARZ
TREASURY FOR FOR JYOO AND CGREENE

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/02/2020
TAGS: AF ECON ECPS EUN IR KCRM KHLS KPAO KTIA MT
NATO, PARM, PGOV, PREL, PTER, KTFN, CON, UNSC
SUBJECT: MALTA SUPPORTIVE ON IRAN SANCTIONS, DATA SHARING,
AND AFGHANISTAN; OPEN TO PFP SOFA

REF: A. STATE 09124

B. STATE 8403

Classified By: Ambassador Douglas W. Kmiec For reasons 1.4 (B) AND (D)

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 VALLETTA 000069

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR NEA/FO ECATALANO AND ISN/RA RNEPHEW
DEPARTMENT ALSO FOR S/CT PSCHULTZ, EUR/ERA ANARDI, L/LEI
KPROPP, A/GIS/IPS/PRV CTHOMAS, PM/SNA KAMEND AND USEU/ECON
LSNYDER
JUSTICE FOR TBURROWS AND MWARREN
DHS FOR MSCARDAVILLE AND JKROPF AND JBEDNARZ
TREASURY FOR FOR JYOO AND CGREENE

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/02/2020
TAGS: AF ECON ECPS EUN IR KCRM KHLS KPAO KTIA MT
NATO, PARM, PGOV, PREL, PTER, KTFN, CON, UNSC
SUBJECT: MALTA SUPPORTIVE ON IRAN SANCTIONS, DATA SHARING,
AND AFGHANISTAN; OPEN TO PFP SOFA

REF: A. STATE 09124

B. STATE 8403

Classified By: Ambassador Douglas W. Kmiec For reasons 1.4 (B) AND (D)


1. (C) Summary: On February 1 Ambassador Kmiec met with
Maltese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Tonio Borg
to discuss a wide range of curently pending issues and U.S.
Government requests. Results of the meeting include (1) a
Maltese commitment to train Afghan civil servants; (2)
Malta's agreement to support future international sanctions,
and to consider US requests for unilateral sanctions in due
course, against Iran if it persists in noncompliance with
international agreements relating to its nuclear program; (3)
Malta's agreement that U.S. and EU data privacy regimes are
essentially comparable and that the Terrorist Financing
Tracking Program should continue; and (4) an indication that
Malta will move forward toward likely signature of the NATO
Partnership for Peace SOFA Agreement.

GOM to Support the Civilian &Surge8 in Afghanistan
-------------- --------------


2. (SBU) Ambassador offered the thanks of the United States
to DPM/FM Borg for Malta,s contribution to the effort to
have a &civil surge8 in Afghanistan by agreeing to

contribute 50-60,000 euro to train Afghan civil servants.
The Foreign Minister indicated that he recognized the amount
was modest but it was significant in terms of healthy
relationships between the GOM and the United States ) a
matter which the FM said he explicitly addressed in a meeting
of the European diplomatic corps in Malta during the time the
Ambassador was in Washington, D.C. for the Chief of Mission
conference. The Ambassador again indicated his appreciation
on behalf of President Obama, and related to the FM how
Ambassador Holbrooke had stressed at the COM conference the
importance assigned to any size donation. Borg expressed the
hope that the donation could be made &in kind8 or at least
not more than half donated in Euros, but that in any event,
the Foreign Minister appreciated the effort being made by
President Obama, which he said amounted to &the last best
hope8 to bring stability and needed security to the region.


3. (SBU) Foreign Minister Borg also indicated that
consideration of Malta,s constitutionally-mandated
neutrality, properly understood, did not affect Malta,s
ability to be part of the effort to bring stability to
Afghanistan since there was no pre-arranged defense pact that
was being implemented and no military installation of a
foreign power was being located on the sovereign territory of
Malta. The FM said the neutrality debate has now blossomed
into a full-scale national re-examination of Malta,s role in
foreign affairs. In particular, the FM indicated that he had
accepted a debate of the issue in general in the
Parliament,s Foreign and European Affairs Committee February

2. The FM, together with Parliamentary Secretary for Public
Dialogue and Information Christopher Said and the Prime
Minister,s Defense Advisor, Vanessa Frazier (who holds a
position which in substance is the equivalent of the Defense
Secretary to Malta),will square off against Michael Frendo,
a Nationalist MP and Chairman of the Committee, who has
opposed an expansion of Malta,s role.

Future sanctions actions on Iran
--------------


4. (SBU) In the same meeting, pursuant to Ref A, Ambassador
Kmiec met with the FM for the purpose of ascertaining and
discussing the government of Malta,s position with respect
to recent efforts to address Iran,s noncompliance with UNSC
sanctions and related agreements. After having outlined Ref
A points -- the failure of the Iran government to support the
IAEA proposal for refueling the Tehran research reactor;
Iran,s failure to facilitate the IAEA,s full investigation
of its previously clandestine uranium enrichment plant at
Qom; Iran, failure to meet with the P5 1 before the end of
October on nuclear issues; and the increasing humanitarian
concern with Iran,s basic disregard of civil liberty (e.g.,
the execution and jailing of government protestors that very

VALLETTA 00000069 002 OF 004


afternoon) -- Ambassador Kmiec requested that the Government
of Malta (GOM) support the United States, as needed, in the
enforcement of existing sanctions, and were that to prove
insufficient, in the pursuit and implementation of
appropriate new sanctions.


5. (C) In response to the request of the United States, the
FM indicated that it is always Malta,s preference to act
multilaterally. For this reason, Malta certainly would
support the UNSC sanctions as they presently exist and apply.
Likewise, should Iran continue its urananium enrichment in
ways strongly suggesting a nuclear weapon to be the purpose,
the GOM would support new, &budget targeted8 sanctions that
could be shown by the USG to have likely influence.


6. (C) With respect to magnifying the impact of new Security
Council resolutions by undertaking unilateral efforts (by way
of example) to freeze the assets of IRISL (now doing business
in Malta as Royal Mediterranean Shipping) or to go even
further and freeze assets of companies doing business with
IRISL, GOM is unlikely at this point to see the necessity of
such action, but would remain open to it. Again, the FM
said, sanctions ought to be &judiciously and
proportionately8 applied and only as &a last resort.8
Unilateral actions could well harm the interest of the U.S.
and others working to limit the spread of nuclear weaponry,
the FM argued, since closing the Maltese port would just push
Iran to another Mediterranean venue which would presumably be
available and outside the reach of Western consideration.
Nevertheless, the Foreign Minister stressed that unilateral
actions were not impossible to conceive, since, after all,
Malta already has unilaterally directed its banks to be wary
of, if not outright decline, Iranian deposits.


7. (C) Ambassador Kmiec reassured the Foreign Minister that
there would be a continuation of diplomatic efforts with
Iran, and these would be suspended only after the application
of a reasonable deadline, and then, in accordance with the
direction of the President, and then only reluctantly. In
other words, it is fair to see the Malta approach as
coincident with the U.S. approach of carefully applied
sanctions pursued only when all reasonable prospects for
diplomatic agreement had been exhausted. However, the
Ambassador stressed that patience is wearing thin in
Washington, with noncompliance of the government of Iran
together with suggestions that the acquisition of materials
necessary for nuclear weapons are proceeding apace, with any
&dissenting voices8 eliminated or dispatched by the
harshest of means. The Foreign Minister said the United
States could count on the government of Malta ¬ to
unilaterally block8 any effort at new sanction through the
&GOM voice.8 Presumably this would be an assurance not to
block consensus at any EU forum seized of the issue.

Sharing of Terrorist Information and Data Privacy
-------------- --------------


8. (SBU) On a third topic, Ambassador, per Ref B, raised the
issue of the protection of data privacy as the U.S. and EU
endeavored to share information on terrorists. Describing at
some length the initiatives whereby the United States had
seemingly reached significant common ground with European
Union on issues of data privacy, the Ambassador advised the
FM that, nevertheless, there may be an effort afoot to undo
this substantial agreement by fostering a misunderstating or
misstatement of the differences between the US and EU
regimes. The EU and U.S. data privacy regimes are different
in means, but they are sufficiently compatible in substantive
direction, that one cannot be said to be greatly more
protective of practical privacy than the other. Moreover, to
overstate data privacy differences is to underappreciate the
importance of trans-Atlantic justice and law enforcement
relations of obtaining and sharing information.


9. (SBU) Ambassador Kmiec alerted the Foreign Mister that on
or about February 9, the Terrorist Financing Tracking
Program(TFTP) would be coming up for a vote in the European
Parliament (EP). Suggesting that the TFTP may be at risk of
being vetoed by the Parliament, Ambassador Kmiec asked the

VALLETTA 00000069 003 OF 004


GOM to discourage this effort. The FM agreed that Malta
would not undermine the common ground that reasonably assured
citizen privacy, even as the protection of data was
differently accomplished in the United States in the European
Union. The FM noted, following the Ambassador,s discussion,
that he was glad to know that the US protections do extend to
anyone within the jurisdiction of the United States whether
they be citizens or noncitizens, even as the U.S. protections
are often mischaracterized as applying only to American
citizens.


10. (SBU) Again, the Ambassador alerted the Foreign Minister
that the EP,s internal discussions may be continuing to
overstate the difference of privacy protection between the
European Union and the United States, and the Ambassador
hoped that the GOM would not be scared off. In particular,
with respect to the interim TFTP agreement signed by the
United States an the EU on November 30, 2009 which had been
scheduled to provisionally enter into force after signature
but before ratification on February 1, 2010 and expire no
later than October 31, 2010, the Ambassador asked the FM that
the GOM either support the ratification of the agreement &as
is & in light of the dozen or so common principles
protecting privacy between the United States and EU or,
should the EP debate raise a doubt as to the extent to which
the United States adequately protects data privacy that the
GOM would not oppose the agreement per se, but instead merely
vote to delay the ratification of the TFTP program for nine
months through the expedient of adopting a nonbinding
resolution raising any doubt over the sufficiency of the
privacy protection, as Malta might then see it.


11. (SBU) The Foreign Minister indicated that while there may
be doubts about the protection of privacy under the
agreement; if there was opposition of the type the Ambassador
described, the GOM would very likely vote to delay the vote
on the ratification rather than vote against the agreement
and its ratification itself. The Foreign Minister said that
he would alert Mr. Simon Busuttil who is the European
People,s Party Coordinator in the European Parliament,s
Committee for Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (the
LIBE Committee),since it is there where the FM anticipated
an issue such of this would be scrutinized before emergence
on the floor of the EP.

Partnership for Peace (PfP) SOFA
--------------


12. (C) Finally, Ambassador and FM Borg discussed outside of
the presence of note takers the prospect of Malta executing
the PfP SOFA. The Foreign Minister indicated that the Prime
Minister was now prepared to go forward, provided that the
Foreign Minister and Ambassador Kmiec agree on terms. The
Ambassador clarified that it is important to understand the
framework of the process; specifically, that the Ambassador
is not representing the &other side8; nor for that matter
is the State Department. Indeed, the Ambassador said a good
way to conceive of the PfP SOFA is as the basic &rules of
the road8 (or in this case, territorial sea). Moreover,
that process occurs under the auspices of the Partnership for
Peace office of NATO, and under the supervision of a NATO
legal adviser. In short, the Foreign Minister was requested
to execute the NATO/PfP SOFA and advised it was not up to the
US Government to accept or reject any reservations, but to
NATO.


13. (C) While recognizing that Malta has concerns pertaining
to sovereign jurisdiction and some national laws (e.g.,
relating to the wearing of uniforms, carrying of weapons,
etc.),which are contrary to PfP SOFA provisions, Ambassador
Kmiec urged the FM not to make any gratuitous reservation or
modification to the standard document if at all possible, and
he promised to forward a copy by messenger. The FM said he
appreciated that the document (i.e., Article VII on
jurisdiction) was a great improvement over the &one sided8
document which had been presented to GOM by the U.S. several
years ago. This is critical to progress on this issue said
the FM, since matters should go well &unless the opposition
stirs up the anger and suspicion among the public through the

VALLETTA 00000069 004 OF 004


NATO label.8 Ambassador Kmiec reminded the FM that other
neutral nations, such as Switzerland and Sweden, had executed
a version of the PfP SOFA, as had Russia. The Ambassador
said he was personally willing to comment upon the proposed
interlineations of the FM, but that ultimately, it was the
NATO legal representative in Brussels that would accept
Malta,s subscription to the Agreement for &NATO8 ) an
acronym the FM said he wished could be kept out as much as
possible of the public discussion.
KMIEC