VZCZCXYZ0000
OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHGV #0821/01 2741641
ZNY SSSSS ZZH
O 011641Z OCT 09
FM USMISSION GENEVA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 9441
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHINGTON DC IMMEDIATE
RUEKDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC IMMEDIATE
RUEKJCS/CJCS WASHINGTON DC IMMEDIATE
RUEKJCS/VCJCS WASHINGTON DC IMMEDIATE
RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHINGTON DC IMMEDIATE
RHEHNSC/NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHINGTON DC IMMEDIATE
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC IMMEDIATE
RUEHNO/USMISSION USNATO IMMEDIATE 4848
RHMFISS/DEPT OF ENERGY WASHINGTON DC IMMEDIATE
RHMFISS/DTRA ALEX WASHINGTON DC IMMEDIATE
RUESDT/DTRA-OSES DARMSTADT GE IMMEDIATE
RUENAAA/CNO WASHINGTON DC IMMEDIATE
RHMFISS/DIRSSP WASHINGTON DC IMMEDIATE
INFO RUEHTA/AMEMBASSY ASTANA PRIORITY 2033
RUEHKV/AMEMBASSY KYIV PRIORITY 1032
RUEHMO/AMEMBASSY MOSCOW PRIORITY 6227

S E C R E T GENEVA 000821 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR T, VC AND EUR/PRA 
DOE FOR NNSA/NA-24 
CIA FOR WINPAC 
JCS FOR J5/DDGSA 
SECDEF FOR OSD(P)/STRATCAP 
NAVY FOR CNO-N5JA AND DIRSSP 
AIRFORCE FOR HQ USAF/ASX AND ASXP 
DTRA FOR OP-OS OP-OSA AND DIRECTOR 
NSC FOR LOOK 
DIA FOR LEA 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/01/2019 
TAGS: KACT MARR PARM PREL RS US START
SUBJECT: START FOLLOW-ON NEGOTIATIONS, GENEVA (SFO-GVA-V): 
(U) SECOND TREATY TEXT WORKING GROUP MEETING, SEPTEMBER 23, 
2009 
 
REF: A. GENEVA 0805 (SFO-GVA-V-005) 
     ¶B. GENEVA 0736 (SFO-GVA-IV-009) 
     ¶C. GENEVA 0781 (SFO-GVA-V-002) 
 
Classified By:  A/S Rose E. Gottemoeller, United States 
START Negotiator.  Reasons:  1.4(b) and (d). 
 
¶1.  (U) This is SFO-GVA-V-011. 
 
¶2.  (U) Meeting Date:  September 23, 2009 
                Time:  3:30 - 6:00 P.M. 
               Place:  U.S. Mission, Geneva 
 
------- 
SUMMARY 
------- 
 
¶3.  (S) The Treaty and Definitions Working Group held its 
second meeting of the session, during which the Parties 
continued discussions based on the U.S.-proposed Joint Draft 
Text (JDT) for the Treaty Preamble, dated September 22, 2009. 
 
¶4.  (S) The session reviewed most of the language of the 
preamble to include a short discussion on the title of the 
treaty itself.  The Russian side discussed at length the 
concepts (and the translation challenges involved) of equal 
security, and the principle of enhanced security emphasizing 
the importance it attaches to these principles.  In a 
reversal of position, the Russian Delegation offered to drop 
its proposed language in the preamble citing the importance 
of verification in the treaty.  Finally, the Russian 
Delegation wanted to see greater recognition for the 
contributions of Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan in the 
preamble. 
 
-------------------------- 
LET'S BEGIN WITH THE TITLE 
-------------------------- 
 
¶5.  (S) Ambassador Ries opened the meeting by welcoming the 
delegates and providing them an extract of wording that had 
been developed and agreed on during the first meeting (REF 
A).  She noted that certain passages might fit better if the 
order were changed, but she recommended waiting until the 
preamble was complete before making any paragraph moves.  Mr. 
Koshelev thanked her for the recommendation, then began by 
recalling language from the previous session's work (REF B) 
that had originally said "U.S. and Russia were no longer 
enemies."  He related how his staff had searched for the 
origin of such language and found it in the Joint Press 
Statement from the Bush-Putin Conference in Sochi in 2008. 
Having found the source, he declared he was satisfied with 
the language as it is now rewritten and did not need to 
include the phrase. 
 
¶6.  (S) Koshelev inquired as to whether the United States was 
satisfied with the title of the treaty.  He sais he thought 
it was important to be precise about titles of important 
documents, citing as an example the plan to re-label the 
Joint Compliance and Inspection Commission (JCIC) to become 
the Bilateral Consultative Commission (BCC), and he wanted to 
know if the new title of the draft documents was acceptable 
to both sides.  Ries agreed to discuss this with the 
 
 
Delegation.  (Begin note:  The title in the U.S.-proposed 
treaty text is the same as the Russian-proposed text.  End 
note.) 
 
------------------------- 
REVISITING EQUAL SECURITY 
------------------------- 
 
¶7.  (S) Ries offered her reflection on Ms. Kotkova's previous 
presentation on equal security (REF C), noting that both the 
United States and Russia have equal sovereignty and were 
equal members of the global community.  Each nation faced its 
own unique security challenges that must be weighed in a 
global context.  She went on to underscore that the analysis 
done in determining unique security requirements could not be 
expressed as "equal" per se, but would be better described as 
resulting in security arrangements that were mutually 
beneficial.  She sought to avoid the use of a term whose 
meaning had not changed from the Cold War period.  She 
proposed amending text to reflect "enhancing mutual security." 
 
¶8.  (S) Koshelev, acknowledging that the term "equal 
security" had generated controversy, noted he had two 
concerns.  He was not sure of the exact origin of the concept 
of "mutual security" and, while there was no doubt mutual 
security would be enhanced, equal security also needed to be 
addressed as, for the Russian Federation, it was the basis 
for any negotiation.  He proposed a new formulation of the 
term, that originally appeared in one of the final documents 
of the "000 NPT Conference, in which the concept of 
"Undiminished Security for all" was espoused.  The term was 
translated "ne-nanacenue uscherba bezopasnosti" (literally, 
non-infliction of damage to security).  As it sounded stilted 
in Russian, Russian interpreters changed it to "Ravnaya 
bezopasnost" (equal security).  Koshelev said his memory was 
jogged when the U.S. interpreter translated undiminished 
security in a way different from the term he was used to (the 
U.S. interpreter used "neoclablennaya bezopasnoct").  He 
offered to accept undiminished security in place of equal 
security if the United States was amenable.  Ries advised she 
would take his proposal for consideration, but warned that 
imprecision regarding translations could inadvertently lead 
back to the original term and the baggage that came with it. 
 
---------------------- 
SO, HOW DO YOU ENHANCE 
SECURITY? 
---------------------- 
 
¶9.  (S) Koshelev addressed another U.S. proposal in the 
preamble which would "enhance the mutual security of the 
parties."  He did not understand how security could be 
enhanced.  Ries pointed out that this language was drawn from 
the April 2009 Joint Statement, to which Koshelev responded 
how the Russian side never really liked the wording of the 
Joint Statement and had been rushed into accepting it at the 
last minute.  If anything, he wanted to avoid repeating the 
mistakes in the Joint Statement and possibly even correct 
them when writing the treaty.  General Venevtsev chimed in 
with the question (Begin comment:  Probably for his side more 
than the U.S. side, as it was not translated.  End comment.) 
"how do you enhance security?  You either have it or you 
don't."  Discussion on this point concluded with several 
 
 
variants being suggested, which both sides agreed to re-visit. 
 
¶10.  (S) The challenges of finding wording that worked in 
both languages became more apparent as the working group 
discussed the Russian-proposed paragraph on the stabilizing 
effect verifiable reductions have had.  In response to a Ries 
proposal to insert the word "positive" in place of 
"stabilizing," Koshelev could not understand how the words 
positive and stability could be used interchangeably.  In the 
end, he accepted the U.S. proposal, advising that the Russian 
translation would probably use different words, but promising 
that the choice of words in Russian would faithfully convey 
the sense of the phrase in English.  The paragraph would 
read, "Taking into account the positive effect on the world 
situation which had resulted from radical, verifiable 
reduction of nuclear arsenals at the turn of the 21st 
century." 
 
-------------------- 
FIRST YOU WANTED IT, 
NOW WE DO 
-------------------- 
 
¶11.  (S) Discussion moved to the paragraph originally 
proposed by Russia on creating a mechanism for verifying 
compliance.  Koshelev said this was an important concept 
brought forward from the START Treaty.  Ries offered to 
accept the language in the Russian proposal.  Koshelev 
quickly interjected that the Russian Delegation no longer 
wished to retain this paragraph but rather wanted to remove 
it.   He explained that the United States gave the Russian 
Federation, in the waning days of 2008, a draft treaty called 
the "Treaty on Security and Confidence-Building Measures," 
which lacked verification measures.  (Begin comment.  This is 
probably the October 23, 2008 Draft U.S.-Proposed Treaty 
Between the United States and the Russian Federation on 
Transparency and Confidence-Building Measures Regarding 
Strategic Offensive Nuclear Reductions.  End comment.)  The 
Russian Delegation sought to add a verification paragraph in 
the preamble to set the tone for the treaty and ensure that 
it contained verification provisions.  Now that such 
provisions were embedded in both side's versions of the 
treaty and the annex(es), there was no reason to have such a 
provision in the preamble. 
 
¶12.  (S) Ries asserted that it was still important to point 
out (to future readers of the treaty) how verification would 
be an important element of the treaty, to which Koshelev 
quipped "all the public really cared about was the numbers 
and not the details."  Koshelev argued that the paragraph 
would give emphasis to only one aspect of the treaty.  To his 
mind, reductions and limitations were the goal, but he 
reiterated that Russia supports verification in the new 
treaty.  Koshelev continued to argue how an element of the 
treaty need not be repeated in the preamble; based on the 
time spent and vigor of the discussion, it was obvious that 
the Russians felt strongly about removing the paragraph from 
the preamble.  Ries noted that the preamble served to set the 
political context and, as such, it was important to highlight 
the importance of verification, especially since it was one 
of the key instructions in the April 2009 Joint Statement. 
Both sides agreed to leave the language bracketed but as a 
U.S. proposal.  Koshelev asserted that, as the Russian 
 
 
Delegation no longer supported the language and the U.S. 
Delegation now supported the language, the bracket should now 
reflect the proper ownership. 
 
---------------------- 
RUSSIAN TERM DU JOUR - 
MULTILATERALIZATION 
---------------------- 
 
¶13.  (S) Discussion moved to a paragraph addressing the 
step-by-step process of reducing and eliminating nuclear arms 
with a view to expanding the process in the future.  Koshelev 
appreciated the structure of the language, but wanted to 
ensure that the paragraph retained a more substantive comment 
involving multilateralization.  He reported how last year's 
disarmament conference concluded with a statement that "other 
(nuclear) nations should seamlessly join in the process of 
nuclear disarmament."  He asked what was meant by the use of 
the word "expanding" (the process).  While he thought it 
probably alluded to more bilateral activities, he wanted the 
next stage of the process to involve other nations as well. 
He returned to Article VI of the NPT and pointed out the 
obligation of all nuclear nations to involve other nuclear 
nations in the nuclear disarmament process. 
 
¶14.  (S) Ries pointed out that there were a number of paths 
the process could go in the future, and multilateralization 
was one of them.  In her opinion, the key thing was not only 
to continue but to do more.  She offered to modify the 
wording of the language to recognize that the process for the 
future could also include multilateralization. 
 
--------------------- 
ABOUT OUR FORMER 
START TREATY PARTNERS 
--------------------- 
 
¶15.  (S) As the last portion of the preamble to be discussed 
for this meeting, Ries turned attention to the various 
proposed passages that noted the contributions of Belarus, 
Ukraine and Kazakhstan.  She offered language which captured 
the essence of the various proposals in a succinct passage. 
Koshelev opined that the three countries deserved "larger 
recognition" for contributing to disarmament, as well as 
contributing to global security as non-nuclear states.  While 
agreeing with the basic U.S. proposal, he wanted "more 
beautiful words" to emphasize the contributions of the other 
START Parties.  He tasked Kotkova to write a proposal and 
promised to provide it at the next session. 
 
¶16.  (U) Documents exchanged.  None. 
 
¶17.  (U) Participants: 
 
U.S. 
 
Amb Ries 
Mr. Brown 
Mr. Connell 
Mr. Evans 
Col Hartford 
Mr. Johnston 
Mr. Taylor 
 
 
Mrs. Zdravecky 
Ms. Gross (Int) 
 
RUSSIA 
 
Mr. Koshelev 
Ms. Kotkova 
Adm (ret) Kuznetsov 
Mr. Luchaninov 
Mr. Malyugin 
Col Novikov 
Gen Venevtsev 
Ms. Komshilova (Int) 
 
¶18.  (U) Gottemoeller sends. 
GRIFFITHS