VZCZCXYZ0001
OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHTC #0357/01 0581104
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 271104Z FEB 07
FM AMEMBASSY THE HAGUE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 8315
INFO RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC PRIORITY
RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHDC PRIORITY
RHEBAAA/DEPT OF ENERGY WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC PRIORITY
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHDC PRIORITY

UNCLAS THE HAGUE 000357 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR ISN/CB, VCI/CCB, L/ACV, IO/S 
SECDEF FOR OSD/ISP 
JOINT STAFF FOR DD PMA-A FOR WTC 
COMMERCE FOR BIS (GOLDMAN) 
NSC FOR LEDDY 
WINPAC FOR WALTER 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PARM PREL CWC
SUBJECT: CHEMICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION (CWC): WRAP-UP FOR THE 
WEEK ENDING FEBRUARY 23 
 
This is CWC-18-07. 
 
-------------------------- 
REVCON PREPARATORY MEETING 
-------------------------- 
 
¶1.  (U) Ambassador Parker (UK) chaired a meeting of the 
open-ended working group for the Second Review Conference on 
February 20.  The meeting covered the modalities for a 
possible meeting of States Parties and NGOs, as well as the 
implementation of the CWC relating to general obligations and 
declarations; general provisions on verification; and CW and 
CW facilities.  Parker had scheduled the morning and 
afternoon for consultations, but in the end most delegations 
seemed to lack guidance from capitals, so the consultation 
wrapped up after the morning session. 
 
¶2.  (U) After the meeting, Parker told del rep that he was 
surprised by the limited amount of input from delegations, 
particularly on the destruction issue.  Parker said that he 
had expected much more criticism of major possessors' 
destruction efforts. 
 
¶3.  (U) On the proposed meeting with NGOs, Parker suggested 
that delegates consider holding the NGO meeting immediately 
after the academic conference in October or November, or 
immediately after the CSP this year.  Of the three 
possibilities, Parker said he thought the first would be the 
best.  He also advocated holding a meeting to review the 
outcome of the Scientific Advisory Board meeting during the 
summer. 
 
¶4.  (U) Sudan, speaking on behalf of the African group, which 
had just held a coordination meeting before the OEWG meeting, 
said that the African group opposed holding the NGO meeting 
concurrently with the revcon itself as had been done at the 
last revcon.  Sudan said that only respected NGOs active in 
the field of arms control should take part in the meeting. 
Sudan also called for TS funding from the regular budget to 
subsidize the travel costs of NGOs from developing countries. 
 South Africa, Iran, and Cuba proposed holding the NGO 
meeting in early 2008. 
 
¶5.  (U) India, after arriving at the meeting late and not 
having heard the earlier interventions made by delegations, 
proposed holding the NGO meeting concurrently with the 
revcon.  Parker noted the African Group request not to do so. 
 New Zealand and the U.S. also noted that the concurrent 
meeting had not worked so well at the last revcon.  As a 
result, India withdrew its suggestion.  The Netherlands said 
that holding the NGO meeting in January 2008 could be 
problematic as it would be too close to the revcon.  The 
Dutch suggested holding the meeting in December 2007. 
 
¶6.  (U) South Korea urged the TS to post NGO documents on the 
website.  Parker said that this issue could be considered, 
but that a filtering mechanism would have to be considered as 
well.  He said that perhaps the external server would be more 
appropriate than the public website for NGO documentation. 
Turkey said that efforts should be made to encourage 
"geographic representation" be taken into account in inviting 
NGOs to the meeting.  Parker deftly suggested that 
delegations and regional groups themselves could most 
effectively play a role in this by urging NGOs from their 
countries or regions attend the meeting.  Iran proposed the 
creation of a trust fund to pay for the travel of NGOs from 
developing countries.  Parker said that the EU may consider 
funding such travel. 
 
¶7.  (U) In the end, Parker said that the bureau would reflect 
on delegations comments on dates, the use of the website, NGO 
participation, and other issues and then revise the paper on 
these issues and redistribute it to SPs. 
 
¶8.  (U) On the second agenda item, the implementation of the 
CWC, Iran said that the revcon should reaffirm the 
obligations of the possessor states to destroy their 
stockpiles and note that the existence of CW stockpiles 
constitutes a threat to international peace and security. 
 
Iran stated that the revcon would also have to make it clear 
that the failure of possessor states to meet destruction 
deadlines would constitute non-compliance with the CWC.  Iran 
said that the use of incapacitants in Iraq raises questions 
that will have to be addressed by the revcon.  The importance 
of universality should be emphasized at the revcon 
particularly "in states of serious concern" according to the 
Iranian Ambassador.  He said that the transfer of schedule 3 
chemicals to non-SPs, as well as the full and complete 
implementation of Article XI, would also have to be 
addressed.  Finally, the Iranians proposed discussing the 
creation of an international support network for the victims 
of CW at the revcon. 
 
¶9.  (U) India emphasized the importance of upholding the CWC 
in its entirety and said it looked forward to reviewing the 
verification annex particularly in light of the TS experience 
since the last revcon.  India looks forward to examining ways 
in which the TS could help SPs in completing their 
declarations. 
 
¶10.  (U) Germany said that it found the paper on the revcon 
of September 22 to be a useful starting point for issues that 
need to be covered during the revcon.  The Germans emphasized 
that the revcon should not excessively focus on the future 
but rather on the past with a particular emphasis on 
implementation to date.  In the German view, there is a 
backlog of outstanding issues that should be addressed.  The 
Germans would also like a fuller discussion of the general 
purpose criterion, optimization, the verification of the 
conversion of CWPF's, and guidelines on the frequency of 
inspections for schedule 1 facilities. 
 
¶11.  (U) France also advocated further examination of the 
general purpose criterion, as well as discussion of 
electronic declaration submissions, the VIR, and sampling and 
analysis.  The UK noted the importance of deadlines and 
meeting them.  They advocated an increase in spending by 
possessor states in order to meet the 2012 deadline.  The UK 
highlighted the importance of all destruction activities 
being irreversible.  They also noted that the CWC is a living 
document and that technological and scientific developments 
needed to be continued to be studied.  The UK urged the DG to 
ask the SAB to look into these issues.  The UK also 
introduced a non-paper that it distributed on the general 
purpose criterion (e-mailed to ISN/CB on 2/20).  The U.S. 
delegation circulated the non-paper provided in State 20175. 
 
¶12.  (U) Sudan requested an updated document listing 
outstanding issues since the last revcon.  Germany and France 
supported the Sudanese request. Turkey called for a stronger 
focus on Article I obligations. 
 
¶13.  (U) The next meeting of the OEWG on the revcon will be 
on March 23, and will focus on activities not prohibited 
under the convention. 
 
--------- 
ARTICLE X 
--------- 
 
¶14. (U) Informal consultations on Article X were held on 
February 21 by the new facilitator Jitka Brodska (Czech 
Republic).  The first topic was an overview of submissions on 
paragraphs 4 (National Programs Questionnaire) and 7 (Offers 
of Assistance Questionnaire).  Muhammad Kazi of the 
Assistance and Protection Branch said every year the TS sends 
a reminder letter.  This year they also asked Regional 
Bureaus to promote submissions, took a previous U.S. 
suggestion to add the formats to the OPCW website, and at 
each APB activity held, encouraged submissions.  APB chief 
Gennadi Lutay said some offers originally made under para 7 
were no longer valid, and the offers need to be renewed.  He 
said the TS plans to renew efforts to obtain more bilateral 
agreements and will ask delegations to talk to their 
capitals. 
 
¶15.  (U) Germany suggested creating an action plan to raise 
the number of submissions, perhaps piggybacking on 
 
universality and Article VII action plans.  The suggestion of 
an action plan was supported by Colombia, the Netherlands, 
Iran and Algeria.  The facilitator noted this and suggested 
that would be a basis of work for the next session.  In the 
meantime she wanted to bring attention to submissions by 
mentioning the upcoming para 4 deadline in her remarks at 
EC-48, at which time the TS would hand-out copies of the 
format.  The U.S. suggested adding the web address for the 
format.  The TS said it would inform recipients that 
countries should submit even in the case of a nil declaration. 
 
¶16. (U) The next topic was APB activities for 2006 and 
projected activities for 2007.  The TS noted they want to do 
additional regional courses, over the one per year they 
currently do in Africa and Asia, noting high risk countries 
need more activities.  The facilitator suggested using the 
2008 budget as a lever to focus on APB programs, to see where 
there are gaps and fill them.  She told delegations she 
wanted to encourage a strategic approach to APB programs. 
South Korea echoed the facilitator.  They said the TS needs 
to coordinate regional and national programs to get the 
information together in order to build on previous events 
with both small and large activities, and basic courses 
should be followed-up by advanced courses.  The Netherlands 
said delegations need to see how resources (the TS budget, 
voluntary contributions and in-kind offers) fit together 
before digging at the budget. 
 
¶17. (U) The TS is continuing to look into linking the 
databank to the external server so National Authorities can 
access it.  However they are still researching the technology 
to do this securely. 
 
¶18. (U) Under any other business, the U.S. strongly 
encouraged the TS to finish the status of implementation 
report and distribute it to SPs as soon as possible before 
the EC so capitals have enough time to evaluate it.  There 
was no response from other delegations.  Also, the U.S. 
requested the TS finish the Joint Assistance Exercise 2005 
Lessons Learned Report as soon as possible and asked if the 
TS had been working on the next major exercise -- perhaps in 
 
SIPDIS 
the Asian region as suggested in previous consultations.  The 
TS responded by saying they had not had a proposal from a 
 
SIPDIS 
partner, which is essential.  Lutay said that he would like 
to have another exercise in 2008, however planning should 
begin now, as 18 months is needed to prepare for such an 
exercise. 
 
¶19. (U) Iran asked delegations to consider beginning work on 
implementing paragraph 11 of Article X, noting that victims 
of CW suffer in the long-term, rather than short-term.  They 
realize it is something of a static clause, but suggested 
consultations to develop an idea, a framework or concept 
paper on the issue.  There was no response, however this does 
follow comments made in their national statements over the 
last two ECs and CSP-11. 
 
¶20. (U) The facilitator said the next meeting would be at 
beginning of May in order to get a better idea of how many 
para 4 submissions are received by the April 30 deadline. 
Documents (including submissions up-to-February 20) have been 
faxed to ISN-CB. 
 
------------------- 
UNIVERSALITY UPDATE 
------------------- 
 
¶21.  (U) Del rep met with Malik Ellahi (External Relations 
Division) to discuss plans for the proposed Universality for 
Africa workshop to be held in Algiers.  A similar workshop 
had been proposed and then canceled by the Algerians last 
year.  According to Ellahi, the TS and the Algerians are 
still moving on planning for the workshop likely to be held 
in June 2007.  Malik told del rep that this would likely be 
one of the last universality workshops. He said that ERD 
would fund the travel of the non-SPs from Africa and the EU 
would use left-over money from last year to fund the travel 
of several African SPs who would share their experiences with 
the non-SPs. Del will continue to monitor planning for the 
 
workshop. 
 
¶22. (U) Javits sends. 
BLAKEMAN