VZCZCXYZ0005
OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHTC #0112/01 0361546
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 051546Z FEB 08
FM AMEMBASSY THE HAGUE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 1029
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 000112 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR ISN/CB, VCI/CCA, L/NPV, IO/MPR, 
SECDEF FOR OSD/GSA/CN,CP> 
JOINT STAFF FOR DD PMA-A FOR WTC 
COMMERCE FOR BIS (ROBERTS) 
NSC FOR SMITH 
WINPAC FOR WALTER 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PARM PREL CWC
SUBJECT: CHEMICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION (CWC): WRAP UP FOR 
WEEK ENDING FEBRUARY 1, 2008 
 
 
This is CWC-05-07. 
 
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SUMMARY 
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¶1. (U) During the week of January 28, the Open Ended 
Working Group (OEWG) began to tackle the draft text 
of the Review Conference report but spent more time 
debating the provisional agenda than examining the 
text.  The German delegation has begun informal 
discussion of industry inspection issues.  A video- 
conference between the Technical Secretariat and the 
U.S. National Authority addressed logistical issues 
in the first sampling and analysis exercise in the 
United States. 
 
------------ 
WEOG MEETING 
------------ 
 
¶2. (SBU) On January 28, the Western European and 
Others Group (WEOG) met immediately prior to the 
meeting of  the Open Ended Working Group.  Few WEOG 
members were prepared to comment on Block 2 of the 
RevCon text.  Of note was a recommendation from the 
UK to include a reference (in the context of the 
General Purpose Criterion) to the future possibility 
of amending the schedules of chemicals.   Italy 
expressed support for this initiative and approached 
the Del after the meeting to solicit U.S. support. 
Del explained that the U.S. is not currently in a 
position to support this.  (Del request:  Del 
understands guidance on this topic has not been 
finalized, but requests background information and 
talking points on the U.S. position be provided as 
soon as possible.) 
 
¶3. (U) Kimmo Laukkanen (Finland), the Article VII 
facilitator, announced his departure from The Hague 
in May and noted the need for a new facilitator. 
Laukkanen plans to organize a consultation before EC- 
52 to discuss any activities since CSP-12, as well as 
possible report language for EC-52. 
 
-------------------------------------------- 
OEWG: PREPARATIONS FOR THE REVIEW CONFERENCE 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
¶4. (U) On January 28, Amb. Parker (UK) chaired the 
eighteenth meeting of the OEWG to discuss: (1) the 
draft provisional RevCon agenda; (2) the second 
section of the draft RevCon report; and (3) 
participation of non-governmental organizations 
(NGOs) in the RevCon. 
 
¶5. (U) Discussion of the provisional agenda took far 
longer than expected, re-hashing positions raised at 
previous meetings.  There was a marked division with 
Iran and India on the one hand calling for a 
simplified agenda with no deviations from that of the 
First RevCon, and a number of WEOG states on the 
other hand supporting the Chair's proposal to include 
new points (e.g., the Scientific Advisory Board 
(SAB)).  Questions ran from what is meant by "the 
work of the Organization" to whether the SAB should 
be a sub-heading under another item, to whether it 
was even appropriate to single out the SAB, given the 
existence of other advisory bodies.  Other points of 
discussion included the relationship of the OPCW to 
other international organizations (para 9f) and the 
contribution of the OPCW to international efforts 
against terrorism (para 9g).  Near the end of 
discussion, Iranian Amb. Ziaran changed tact by 
requesting a laundry list of problematic additions to 
skew the agenda toward CW destruction.  Amb. Parker 
quickly intervened, noting the obvious contractions 
between the request and Iran's initial position. 
 
 
¶6. (U) With almost no discussion on Block 2 of the 
draft text, Amb. Parker announced that the complete 
list of NGOs and "eminent individuals" proposed to be 
invited to the RevCon would be available shortly, and 
requested comments by the next meeting, scheduled for 
February 8.  The NGO meeting, separate from the 
plenary, will likely be held at the OPCW on Wednesday 
of the first week of the Review Conference, which 
should allow time for completion of the national 
statements, but avoid the more intense negotiations 
expected during the second week. 
 
¶7. (U) Parker again requested delegations to notify 
the TS as soon as possible regarding the possibility 
of ministerial level attendance at the RevCon.  He 
also informed delegations that OPCW Legal Adviser 
Onate has provided legal advice on amending the rules 
of procedure to establish a regional rotation of the 
chairmanship.  This advice should be available to the 
RevCon Working Group in the near future; Del is 
working to obtain an advance copy.  Finally, Parker 
reminded delegations that national statements can be 
posted on the external server upon request.  Del 
understands Washington is still clearing the U.S. 
paper in response to the Director General's report, 
and believes its submission will be important in 
adding to the list of positions that have been 
articulated in writing, which currently include the 
NAM and EU common positions. 
 
---------------------------------- 
INCREASING OCPF INSPECTION NUMBERS 
---------------------------------- 
 
¶8. (U) On January 30, Delrep participated in a 
meeting called by the German delegation to discuss 
"increasing OCPF inspection numbers."  The French, 
UK, and Japanese delegations also attended.  The 
paper the German delegation shared in advance of the 
meeting (faxed separately to State/ISN and Commerce) 
assessed their estimation of the distribution of OCPF 
inspections in the future if the overall number of 
OCPF inspections were to be increased.  With as 
little an increase as from the 2008 budget number of 
118 OCPF inspections to 130, the Chinese would hit 
their treaty-mandated Schedule 3/OCPF cap, with a 
maximum of only 14 OCPF inspections.  The number 
would have to be increased to 220 before the next 
country (Germany-10) would hit its cap, and a further 
increase to 260 would bring Japan (17) and Korea (7) 
to their caps.  The U.S. would still not hit its cap 
at that high inspection level.  Also, this type of 
significant increase would only slightly increase the 
inspections in countries like Iran (2 to 4) and 
Pakistan (1 to 2).  The general theme was, therefore, 
whether further increases in OCPF inspection numbers 
could be justified given that the new methodology 
does not appear to result in significant inspection 
increases in some countries of greater concern. 
 
¶9. (U) Japan reminded the group that the situation 
presented by Germany is exacerbated by the TS 
practice of only allowing 5-percent of OCPF 
inspections within a given year to be subsequent 
inspections (i.e., inspections at sites that have 
been previously inspected).  By Japanese assessment, 
a country like Pakistan would be completely out of 
the OCPF inspection regime in 20 years or less. 
 
¶10. (U) The UK delegation acknowledged that the DG,s 
new methodology will not necessarily give us what we 
want in distributing inspections more broadly, but 
they questioned what else could be done.  In their 
view, any additional numbers of OCPF inspections are 
of broad benefit, even if they occur at sites in a 
WEOG country or Japan, and they reminded the group 
that this was consistent with the EU common position 
 
on the matter.  They also feel that the distribution 
of inspections outside of WEOG/Japan would balance 
out over time. 
 
¶11. (U) In the end, the group concluded that the only 
way to really ensure OCPF inspections in more 
countries, within the current methodology, was to 
work toward a decision on VA Part IX, para 11(c) 
(i.e., proposals by States Parties).  The group also 
felt that, if consultations were to occur on OCPF 
site selection, that they would be best focused on 
this remaining element, giving the new TS methodology 
time to be amply applied and evaluated. 
 
¶12. (U) On related topics:  Germany raised the fact 
that they will insist during the RevCon on a strict 
maintenance of the "hierarchy of risk." Although 
other delegations disagreed, the UK and Delrep 
pointed out that this need not be argued, as OCPF 
inspection numbers could be further increased sharply 
(e.g., doubled) without impacting any perceived 
balance between hierarchy and inspection rate.  The 
German delegation also pointed out that efforts made 
to improve OCPF declarations - to give more accurate 
information about "main activities," for example ) in 
an effort to better focus on those plant sites of 
greater relevance to the Convention will likely 
result in greater targeting of the more sophisticated 
sites in the WEOG and Japan.  The UK delegation also 
reported that the TS believes they need a technical 
change to the Convention to allow them to use open 
source information for site selection purposes.  (Del 
comment: This may be why the DG included this issue 
in the RevCon paper (WGRC-2/S/1, dated 27 November 
2007), although it is not clear in the paper whether 
the TS will request a change in the Convention to 
allow them to use open source material, or whether 
the DG was asserting the right of the TS to use open 
source data.  End comment.) 
 
¶13. (SBU) At the close of the meeting, the UK 
delegation shared with Delrep a "Restricted" UK non- 
paper entitled "OCPFs: What They Are and Why They Are 
Important."  This has been scanned and transmitted 
separately. 
 
--------------------------------------------- -------- 
VIDEO TELECONFERENCE: SAMPLING AND ANALYSIS LOGISTICS 
--------------------------------------------- -------- 
 
¶14. (U) On January 31, Delrep participated in a video 
teleconference with TS representatives (Bill Kane, 
Horst Reeps, Gary Mallard, Jutta Hauschild, Dennis 
van der Vegt, Violeta Artos, Peter Boehme, Im-Suk 
Yang) and the U.S. National Authority (ISN/CB and 
Commerce-TCD).  The participants discussed the 
logistical challenges that arose during the November 
2007 Schedule 2 inspection involving sampling and 
analysis in the U.S. 
 
¶15. (U) The meeting centered on five topics: (1) the 
notification, (2) Customs-related activities, (3) the 
movement of dangerous goods, (4) the performance of 
TS contractors and sub-contractors throughout the 
 
SIPDIS 
process, and (5) technical equipment inspection.  On 
each topic, the National Authority identified the 
problems that arose, the reasons behind the problems 
(if known) were discussed, and clear next steps were 
identified with the goal of preventing a reccurrence 
of these problems in the future. 
 
¶16. (U) A similar meeting (again by video 
teleconference) will be held soon to address the 
policy issues that arose during this inspection.  Del 
plans to again help to coordinate that meeting and to 
participate. 
 
----------------------------------- 
 
COORDINATION FOR CLOSE ALLIES LUNCH 
----------------------------------- 
 
¶17. (SBU) Del has confirmed the attendance of 
representatives from The Hague and capitals at a 
working lunch hosted by Ambassador Javits on February 
¶11.  The primary aim will be to discuss preparations 
for the RevCon, but any topics of particular concern 
for EC-52 (e.g. Russia's Maradykovsky facility 
agreement and verification plan) may also be raised. 
Del requests interagency guidance on RevCon 
preparations/strategy and the upcoming Executive 
Council session be provided prior to the lunch. 
 
¶18. (U) Javits sends. 
Arnall