This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BRUSSELS 001162 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/19/2014 
TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM UP BO MD EUN RU USEU BRUSSELS
SUBJECT: U.S.-EU DISCUSS RUSSIA, UKRAINE, MOLDOVA, BELARUS 
 
REF: A. A) MINSK 352 
     ¶B. B) STATE 49374 
     ¶C. C) STATE 48021 
     ¶D. D) BRUSSELS 796 
 
Classified By: USEU POLOFF TODD HUIZINGA, FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D) 
 
 ¶1. (C) SUMMARY:  At U.S.-EU COEST consultations on March 16, 
EUR DAS Steven Pifer and EU interlocutors agreed that Russian 
progress on democracy and human rights and cooperation with 
the U.S. and EU in the former Soviet space were central to 
building a better strategic relationship with Russia.  EU 
participants stressed that Russia must agree to extend the 
EU-Russia Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA), which 
frames EU-Russia relations, to the 10 incoming EU member 
states without preconditions.  On Ukraine, all agreed that 
strong U.S. and EU messages on democratization were key, 
especially in the run-up to the October elections. 
Discussion of Moldova centered on (1) reenergizing the 
process of resolving the break between Moldova and 
Transniestria, and (2) pressing the Russians to fulfill their 
OSCE "Istanbul commitments" to withdraw military materiel 
from Moldova.  Pifer and EU counterparts also discussed their 
upcoming March 19 joint visit to Minsk to push Belarus for 
specific steps toward democracy and respect for human rights. 
 We believe this U.S.-EU joint visit will strongly signal to 
Belarus the need for democratic change.  END SUMMARY. 
 
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EU-RUSSIA RELATIONS BASED ON SHARED VALUES? 
------------------------------------------- 
 
¶2.  (C) Irish EU Presidency COEST head Barbara Jones said the 
recent EU reassessment of EU-Russia relations had been 
salutary (ref D).  The principal conclusion had been that the 
relationship has to be based on shared values of democracy, 
respect for human rights, and rule of law.  Also, the EU had 
realized that a lack of coherence in the EU approach to 
Russia had compounded the problems in the relationship. 
Thus, the EU had agreed that a key issues/objectives paper 
would be prepared before each EU-Russia summit to focus 
discussions.  In mandating this paper, the EU member states 
had given the EU presidency a clear signal to work closely 
with the Commission on Russia policy. 
 
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U.S., EU SHARE CONCERNS ON RUSSIA 
--------------------------------- 
 
¶3. (C) Pifer said the U.S. had undergone a process of 
reassessment or recalibration of U.S.-Russian relations prior 
to the Secretary's visit to Moscow in January.  Key concerns 
were the same as the EU's:  democracy issues, the Yukos 
affair, the Duma elections, and Russia's actions in the 
former Soviet space.  Pifer agreed that an apparently 
widening gap in democratic values was complicating the 
building of a strategic partnership with Russia. 
 
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RUSSIA AND ENLARGED EU: BUMPY ROAD 
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¶4. (C) Gerhard Lohan, Head of the 
Russia/Ukraine/Moldova/Belarus Unit of the European 
Commission Directorate-General for External Relations, raised 
the EU-Russia Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA), 
the basic framework for EU-Russia relations.  He said it was 
critical that Russia extend the PCA without preconditions to 
the ten new EU member states by the time they accede to the 
EU on May 1.  Anything else, he said, would be a "serious 
violation" of the PCA as such.  He said Russia had given the 
EU a list of 14 issues that Russia wanted to see resolved 
before the May 1 enlargement.  Lohan said the EU was 
"addressing" those issues, and wanted to "double-track" the 
process:  Russia would extend the PCA now, and the EU would 
agree to work with Russia on resolving the 14 issues.  Lohan 
lamented that the Russians, however, wanted to put the 
question on hold until the EU-Russia Ministerial, which would 
be very late (the Ministerial, originally scheduled for March 
11, was postponed because of Putin's cabinet reshuffle; now 
the EU is shooting for a date in mid- to late April).  At an 
EU-Russia Political Directors' meeting on March 22, the EU 
plans to press for a Russian statement that it will extend 
the PCA by May 1, according to Lohan. 
 
¶5. (C) Pifer asked how many of the 14 issues were serious 
Russian concerns.  Lohan replied that close to ten of them, 
mostly economic issues and questions related to visas and 
movement of people (especially related to Kaliningrad), were 
legitimate.  He said the Russians had also raised concerns 
about treatment of Russian minorities in the Baltic states, 
and had even thrown in "noisy aircraft transition standards" 
for good measure. 
 
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EU UNCHR 60 CHECHNYA RESOLUTION 
------------------------------- 
 
¶6. (C) Jones reported that, since Russia had rejected the EU 
proposal to have a Chairman's statement on Chechnya at the 
upcoming UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) in Geneva, the 
EU was now about to circulate a draft UNCHR resolution.  She 
said the EU was counting on U.S. support (she made this point 
three times), and would share the draft with the U.S. as soon 
as the EU had reached internal agreement on the language. 
Pifer replied that the USG was engaged in interagency 
discussions on how to handle Chechnya at the UNCHR, and would 
inform the EU of the outcome of those deliberations. 
 
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CHECHNYA EU SECURITY PROBLEM 
---------------------------- 
 
¶7. (C) Pifer said his impression was that Russia's focus in 
Chechnya was "normalization" -- but it was hard to see any 
Russian plans on how to move forward in Chechnya other than 
simply asserting that the situation was normalizing.  Pifer 
pointed out the difficulty of finding leverage on Chechnya 
other than moral suasion and public criticism, neither of 
which had moved Putin in the past.  Jones said that, with the 
Chechen terrorist trend toward suicide bombing and the latest 
UN High Commissioner for Refugees report showing Russia as 
the highest growth source of refugees to the EU, Chechnya was 
a looming human rights and security problem for the EU -- the 
empty talk about normalization could not be allowed to 
continue. 
 
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RUSSIA AND FORMER SOVIET SPACE 
------------------------------ 
 
¶8. (C) The EU participants stressed Russian reluctance to 
talk with the EU about Moldova, Georgia, Belarus and other 
countries in the former Soviet space.  Pifer said the U.S. 
was emphasizing to the Russians that the USG's having 
interests in the former Soviet space should not translate 
into a zero-sum game between the U.S. and Russia.  The 
Secretary had focused during his Moscow visit on U.S.-Russia 
 
SIPDIS 
cooperation in Georgia, and Putin had explicitly affirmed 
Georgia's right to decide about the presence of foreign 
troops on its territory.  Of course, Pifer added, whether 
Putin's affirmation would be reflected in upcoming base 
negotiations with the Georgians remained to be seen. 
 
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UKRAINE: OCTOBER ELECTIONS WATERSHED 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶9. (C) Pifer and Jones agreed that the October presidential 
election would be a watershed for Ukraine -- a free and fair 
election would be a huge step toward consolidation of 
democracy, and the opposite would be a huge setback.  Pifer 
and Jones also underscored the multiplier effect of strong, 
coordinated U.S. and EU messages on democracy.  Pifer noted 
that Deputy Secretary Armitage would visit Kiev on March 
24-25 and would carry a strong message on democracy.  Peter 
McIvor of the Irish MFA said the EU was working on a 
declaration that would focus on the broad message of 
democratic standards, to be issued soon.  The Irish were 
considering the merits of a public calling to account of the 
Kiev government and sought U.S. views.  Pifer replied that 
the real question was to find incentives for President Kuchma 
on democracy issues.  One possible incentive was to condition 
an invitation to the June NATO summit in Istanbul on progress 
toward respecting the opposition and toward a free and fair 
election in October.  Also, one could couch the message to 
Kuchma in terms of his legacy -- he could claim a good record 
on the economy and on Ukraine's moving closer to Europe; his 
legacy on democracy could either underpin or undermine his 
record on those other points.  EU participants agreed that 
Kuchma wants to move on (as opposed to running for a third 
term) but has an interest in endorsing a successor and 
arranging for a safe and secure retirement. 
 
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EU ACTION PLAN FOR UKRAINE 
-------------------------- 
 
¶10. (C) Lohan discussed the Commission's draft action plan 
for Ukraine.  Kiev is buying into the plan for the short 
term, but Ukraine's real focus is moving on within a few 
years to an association agreement with the 
medium-to-long-term perspective of EU membership.  The 
Commission is trying to steer Ukraine toward thinking in 
terms of the European Neighborhood policy and away from the 
perspective of EU membership.  EU resources would be tight 
through 2006.  For the 2007-2013 financial framework, the 
Commission hoped to establish a new instrument for 
Neighborhood technical assistance.  In May, Enlargemenet 
Commissioner Guenter Verheugen will report on the Action 
Plan's status.  On upcoming high-level meetings with Ukraine, 
McIvor was adamant that the cancellation of the March 30 
EU-Ukraine Ministerial had been due solely to an unavoidable 
conflict that arose in Irish FM Cowen's schedule.  The 
EU-Ukraine summit (under the Dutch EU presidency) is 
scheduled for July 8 at The Hague. 
 
¶11. (C) EU Council Ukraine/Moldova/Belarus Deskoff Carl 
Hartzell reported that, although the Commission has the lead 
on Ukraine in EU institutional terms, EU HighRep Javier 
Solana has taken a keen interest in Ukraine.  Solana believes 
that Ukraine can be a test case for the EU's Neighborhood 
Policy.  Jones noted that Ukraine is vulnerable to Russian 
energy pressure.  Pifer agreed that Russia bears close 
watching, but he added that it may be incorrect to attribute 
the activities of Russian companies in Ukraine to official 
Russian policy rather than simply to Russian companies' 
acting in what they perceive to be their self interest. 
 
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MOLDOVA: TRANSNIESTRIA, ISTANBUL COMMITMENTS 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
¶12. (C) Pifer told the EU that Deputy Secretary Armitage 
expected to make a five-hour stopover in connection with his 
March 24-25 visit to Ukraine.  This would be the most senior 
U.S. visit in about a decade.  The U.S. continued to push for 
Russia's fulfillment of its Istanbul commitments, but there 
had been no removal of Russian ammunition from Moldova in at 
least three months.  On a solution to the breakaway region of 
Transnistria, Pifer said that Russia needed to get over the 
failure of the Kozak Plan and reengage within the OSCE 
mediation effort.  Pifer pushed the idea of a meeting of the 
U.S., EU, OSCE, Russia and Ukraine to examine how to move 
forward.  Lohan reported on informal trilateral talks 
(Moldova, Ukraine, Commission) on border management.  He said 
the parties had agreed to set up five joint border posts 
between Moldova and Ukraine, but not on the 
Ukrainian-Transnistrian border.  Commission technical 
assistance was slotted to rise, and the EU was prepared to 
shift from loans to grants contingent on IMF conditionality. 
 
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BELARUS: MARCH 19 JOINT U.S.-EU VISIT 
------------------------------------- 
 
¶13. (C) Pifer and EU counterparts used the Belarus discussion 
to coordinate strategy for their upcoming March 19 joint 
visit to Minsk to push Belarus for specific steps toward 
democracy and respect for human rights.  This visit will be a 
follow-up to the joint U.S.-EU delivery of a demarche to 
Belarus on March 15 linking Belarus' relations with both the 
U.S. and the EU to specific progress on democracy and respect 
for human rights (refs A-C).  Pifer said a further signal to 
Belarus on U.S. resolve would be that the U.S. Ambassador in 
Minsk, George Krol, and Pifer would depart Minsk together for 
Moscow to talk with the Russians about the situation in 
Belarus, in an effort to see if Moscow was prepared to press 
President Lukashenko on democracy questions (though 
expectations were modest). 
 
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COMMENT: COORDINATION WITH EU KEY 
--------------------------------- 
 
¶14. (C) U.S. and EU views on all four of the countries 
discussed at this COEST remain very close.  U.S.-EU policy 
coordination in the region will remain an important part of 
the USG approach, especially after the May 1 enlargement 
brings the EU to the COEST countries' borders.  The March 19 
joint visit of the U.S.-EU COEST Troika principals to Minsk 
will strongly signal to Belarus U.S. and Europe's common 
conviction of the need for democratic change.  END COMMENT. 
 
 
¶15. (U) This message has been cleared by EUR DAS Pifer. 
 
FOSTER