VZCZCXYZ0000
OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHTL #0149/01 1161312
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 251312Z APR 08
FM AMEMBASSY TALLINN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 0603
INFO RUEHMO/AMEMBASSY MOSCOW 2598

UNCLAS TALLINN 000149 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
SENSITIVE 
 
FOR EUR/NB KATHERINE GARRY 
FOR INS/WMDT SARAH PRESCOTT AND TIM KATSAPIS 
MOSCOW FOR COLIN CLEARY AND MIKE DUNKLEY 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL KNP RU EN
SUBJECT: ESTONIA PROVIDES DRAFT GLOBAL INITIATIVE JOINT 
EDITORIAL FOR REVIEW 
 
REF: TALLINN 134 
 
¶1. (U) Action request - please see paragraph (3). 
 
¶2. (SBU)  On April 25, Anneli Poolakese, Counter Terrorism 
Desk Officer at the Estonian MFA, provided Poloff the MFA's 
draft text for the proposed Estonia-U.S.-Russia joint 
editorial on the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear 
Terrorism (GI) (reftel).  The text is provided in para 4. 
 
¶3. (SBU) ACTION REQUEST:  Embassy requests the Department 
provide comments on the text that we can convey to the MFA. 
We note the MFA is not planning to share the draft text 
with the Government of Russia before it receives comments 
from the United States. 
 
¶4. (U) Begin draft text: 
 
 
GLOBAL INITIATIVE EDITORIAL: 
 
Terrorism is the scourge of our times and the civilized 
world must fight it on all fronts.  Terrorism aims to 
strike fear into our hearts by making us feel unsafe, by 
making us fear an attack wherever we are, unless we give in 
to the terrorists' demands, whatever they may be. 
 
Civilization's greatest fear being nuclear weapons in the 
wrong hands, our greatest challenge in the fight against 
terrorism is preventing nuclear terrorism, preventing 
terrorists from obtaining nuclear weapons. 
 
The overriding safeguard against nuclear terrorism is the 
international nonproliferation regime, a complex system 
built by the international community to deal with diverse 
proliferation threats. With each initiative added, the 
regime has sought to adapt to new challenges [presented by 
advances in technology, evolving security dynamics, and 
other events]. 
 
Nevertheless, "proliferators", terrorists among them, have 
managed to adapt to new conditions and occasionally outfox 
safeguards and prevention.  We must do everything we can to 
always be at least one step ahead of them.  This is a race 
we cannot afford to lose, lest the world enter a new and 
dangerous nuclear era. 
 
The entire spectrum of nuclear policy, including arms 
control, deployments, threat reducing assistance, civilian 
nuclear energy, even medical and industrial uses of 
radioactive sources needs reshaping to give full 
recognition to the dangers of nuclear proliferation. To 
this end, the nonproliferation architecture assembled over 
the past three decades needs to be reinforced and fortified 
by new measures. 
 
The task is immense.  Although the end of the Cold War two 
decades ago should have made nuclear weapons obsolete, 
there are still more than 25,000 of them ready for use. 
But the potential exists to make almost ten times as many, 
200,000 weapons - world stockpiles of separated plutonium 
and highly enriched uranium (HEU), the essential 
ingredients of nuclear weapons, amount to well over 2,300 
tons. Because fissile materials have both military and 
civilian uses, these materials are much more broadly 
distributed than nuclear weapons are. But only a small 
amount of this is under safeguards. 
 
Terrorists and their supporters [would-be nuclear states] 
continue to try to acquire nuclear material on the black 
market. The break-up of the A.Q. Khan network was critical 
in stemming the spread of the know-how and equipment needed 
to produce fissile material and nuclear weapons. Most 
alarmingly, the likelihood that non-state terrorists will 
get their hands on nuclear weaponry is increasing. 
 
The international community needs to take concrete action. 
States must put in place effective controls and enforcement 
so that non-state actors will not acquire deadly 
technologies [that they would then turn on civilized 
nations]. 
 
Consensus adoption of UNSCR 1540 requiring all UN member 
states to adopt measures to secure their nuclear assets, to 
adopt effective export controls, on WMD material, and to 
criminalize actions by non-state actors to develop WMD in 
April 2004 signals an important recognition that every 
 
nation has a responsibility in this endeavor and must 
redouble their efforts to ensure that terrorists do not 
succeed in their deadly quest. 
 
When President Bush and President Putin announced the 
Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism on the eve of 
the G8 Summit 2006, they emphasized the importance of 
seeking and creating creative opportunities where all 
federal, state, and local government organizations could 
work together to combat nuclear terrorism. 
 
Interacting closely with the International Atomic Energy 
Agency (IAEA), the partners endorsed the Statement of 
Principles, which include a political commitment to expand 
and accelerate our individual and collective efforts to: 
 
-Develop and improve accounting, control and physical 
protection; 
-Enhance the security of civilian nuclear facilities; 
-Research and develop national detection capabilities that 
are interoperable; 
-Enhance search, confiscation, and safe control 
capabilities; 
-Deny safe haven and financial resources to those 
facilitating nuclear terrorism; 
-Ensure adequate civil and criminal legal frameworks to 
deter nuclear terrorism; 
-Improve response, investigation, and mitigation 
capabilities; and 
-Promote information sharing among participants . 
 
We are pleased by the large increase in participation in 
the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism. We have 
over 60 partners in the Global Initiative and a confident 
expectation that we will grow in the near future. 
 
The expanded participation demonstrates the strong desire 
of the international community to combat nuclear terrorism 
and the readiness to strengthen our capacity to prevent the 
acquisition of nuclear materials and know-how by 
terrorists. 
 
We would conduct a strong outreach campaign to bring on new 
partners before the next GI meeting. 
 
We would extend our partnership to governments and to the 
private sector in recognition of their critical role in 
combating nuclear terrorism with us at the international 
and national levels. 
 
By bringing together the international community around a 
common goal, improving the ability of states to take 
concerted action and creating synergies, we will take 
important strides toward effectively addressing perhaps the 
greatest threat of the 21st century. 
 
To tackle nuclear terrorism, it is crucial to ensure that 
nuclear materials are not accessible to terrorists, and 
that nuclear facilities and structures will not become the 
target of terrorist attacks. These risks should be 
considered by both large and small countries, whether they 
are nuclear or non-nuclear. 
 
The way forward for the Global Initiative is to pre-empt 
nuclear terrorism in a deeper, more sustained and creative 
way. The framework for our partnership - a shared 
understanding of the threat, the principles we must 
implement, the political commitments we have made, the 
scheduled activities - are either established or set in 
motion. We don't really have a choice - as long as nothing 
changes, nuclear terrorism will remain an ever-present 
danger.  If GI works then we can hope for a life without 
fear. 
 
END TEXT OF GLOBAL INITIATIVE EDITORIAL 
 
 
PHILLIPS