VZCZCXYZ0000
OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHTC #0306/01 0930940
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 020940Z APR 08
FM AMEMBASSY THE HAGUE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 1311
INFO RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC PRIORITY
RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHDC PRIORITY
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UNCLAS THE HAGUE 000306 
 
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 MARCH 28, 2008 
 
This is CWC-14-08. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
SUMMARY AND SCENESETTER FOR THE REVIEW CONFERENCE 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
¶1. (SBU) The last week in March moved from more 
formal meetings on the Review Conference to less 
formal but more focused discussions of the Chairman's 
revised draft text for the report, which was 
distributed on March 26.  The first such informal 
meeting on March 28 slowly worked through the first 
twelve paragraphs of the draft, with delegations 
expressing their views more often on editorial points 
than major substance.  The process of expressing 
views on specifics, however, will be important to 
determining just how far apart states' positions are, 
how strongly some of the more controversial views are 
held, and how much of the report will be truly 
contentious. 
 
¶2. (SBU)  The Non-Aligned Movement states led by Cuba 
have been pushing for this detailed discussion for 
some time and welcomed its start, although noting how 
late it began.  The Chairman of the working group, 
Ambassador Lyn Parker (UK), has spent an enormous 
amount of time revising the draft text and trying to 
accommodate as many comments as possible (he received 
over 1,000 on the first draft).  The European Union, 
the Western group (WEOG) and like-minded states are 
very happy with the text as drafted, but the NAM is 
insisting that its views be included.  The draft 
report has also subsumed the original plan for a 
draft political declaration to be discussed well 
before the conference.  The "declaration" (the UK 
would prefer that it not be deemed "political") is 
expected to appear for the first time during the week 
of March 31. 
 
¶3. (SBU) Despite quite a number of contentious issues 
in the report (counter-terrorism, destruction, non- 
proliferation, national implementation, assistance 
for Articles X and XI, industry inspections, and 
others), Del remains optimistic that other 
delegations -- even Iran -- are working toward a 
successful conference and that most issues, if not 
all, can be brought to a successful compromise.  More 
worrisome than sabotage is the question of time.  The 
Working Group will be hard pressed to get through the 
full text paragraph by paragraph in the one remaining 
week before the Conference. 
 
¶4. (SBU) The tentative program of work for the 
Conference (published March 28) devotes three days to 
the general debate and only begins work -- through 
the Committee of the Whole -- on Thursday, April 10. 
Each topic (section of the report) then has one 
session through Wednesday, April 16, with the final 
days reserved for subsidiary bodies.  We believe that 
the subsidiary bodies, small drafting/discussion 
groups, will need to get started early in the 
Conference and work throughout to reach agreement on 
the text.  The Saudi Ambassador, future Chair of the 
RevCon, has been assiduously attending the meetings 
of the working group, and undoubtedly has a firm 
grasp of the contentious divisions.  He will, 
however, need some strong support from other 
ambassadors as facilitators during the Conference to 
make it through the sheer volume of work ahead. 
 
¶5. (U) In addition to the RevCon-related meetings, 
consultations were held on Article X as well as a 
local Geneva Group Meeting on March 28. 
 
------------- 
WEOG and OEWG 
------------- 
 
¶6. (SBU) The Western European and Others Group (WEOG) 
met on March 27 just after an EU meeting and before 
the Open Ended Working Group (OEWG).  Reactions to 
the revised Chairman's composite draft report for the 
RevCon were generally positive, although all agreed 
that tactically it would be better not to line up too 
strongly in favor of the draft.  German Ambassador 
Burkhart warned that much of the NAM's paper is not 
in the text and will surface in new proposals.  Amb. 
Javits reminded everyone that the NAM is not an 
official group and that it should not be given that 
status in negotiations, which should be by States 
Parties. 
 
¶7. (SBU) On the Paris seminar hosted by the French 
government earlier in the week, Amb. Lak of the 
Netherlands stated that, for him, the workshop 
pointed to the need for greater education and 
awareness in the "real world" outside OPCW of the 
potential for terrorism.  He noted that lines of 
action on terrorism were more for States Parties than 
for the OPCW.  He supported the French 
recommendations on open source material. The Italian 
delegate added that the partnership with industry is 
critical in countering new threats.  Amb. Javits 
spoke of the terrorists' asymmetrical challenge to 
states and statehood, and the broad capabilities of 
non-state actors.  The French delegate noted that a 
CD was made of the seminar with copies given to all 
delegations and available for others who did not 
attend. 
 
¶8. (U) The OEWG focused once again on procedures. 
Chairman Parker (UK) presented the revised draft 
report, with two versions, one highlighting the 
paragraphs that had substantive revision and the 
other with clean text.  OPCW editors were going 
through it for standard formatting and grammar, and 
Amb. Parker welcomed notes of any editorial glitches. 
He outlined the informal meetings to begin on Friday 
(March 28), breaking the text into four parts: 
 
-- Paragraphs 1 - 37 to be discussed March 28; 
-- Paragraphs 38 - 79 for discussion March 31; 
-- Paragraphs 80 - 105 for discussion April 1; 
-- Paragraphs 106 - 141 for discussion April 2. 
 
The regular OEWG meeting will be on Thursday, April 
3, for final operational decisions, with Friday, 
April 4, open for further discussion as needed.  For 
the four text meetings, informal sessions will start 
in the morning, with Parker chairing, primarily for 
questions, clarification and discussion of 
priorities.  The afternoons have been left open for 
smaller drafting groups as might wish to continue 
meeting, but Parker asked that the chairmen be 
identified before the morning meeting disbands and 
that the chairs report back to the larger group the 
next day. 
 
¶9. (U) When asked about the political declaration, 
Parker said a draft will be circulated the week of 
March 31, and noted -- as in previous meetings -- 
that he sees this as a short piece targeted to the 
public.  The Iranian delegation spoke (again) in 
favor of a "solemn declaration" at the beginning of 
the report, essentially a summary of its contents, 
with only one document to be produced by the RevCon 
rather than two.  Several delegations, including the 
U.S., spoke in favor of a simpler document that the 
general public could understand, rather than a 
summary of the complex report. 
 
¶10. (U) At the first meeting of the informal OEWG on 
Friday afternoon, March 28, attendance was nearly as 
high as for the regular weekly OEWG meetings.  After 
Chairman Parker outlined the changes he had made in 
the first part of the revised text, describing it at 
one point as the "Lonely Planet Guide to All the 
Articles," the group agreed to begin paragraph by 
paragraph deliberations.  The Cuban Ambassador, on 
behalf of the NAM and China, laid down one final 
marker that the text should not be distributed to the 
SPs until the detailed discussions reached agreement, 
igniting one last rebuttal from the Chair that he is 
responsible for distributing a draft text to all 
delegations in advance of the Conference. 
 
¶11. (U) In the three hours of hard slogging discussion 
that followed, the group only worked through the 
first sub-section (12 paragraphs).  Most of the 
comments were more editorial than substantive in 
nature.  However, Iran threw out challenges on 
several problematic issues: stating that the 
differences in progress in destruction by the various 
possessor states should be noted in the report; 
proposing new language on riot control agents and 
incapacitants; and asserting categorically that there 
should be no mention in the report of UN Security 
Council Resolution 1540.  Iran's statements elicited 
strong reaction from a number of delegations, 
including the U.S.  During the protracted debate on 
which obligations of the Convention were most 
important, the Russian delegation, largely silent to 
date in larger OEWG meetings, made several useful 
interventions, including objecting to adding 
"fundamental" to the destruction obligation since all 
obligations in the Convention are fundamental.  The 
Russian delegate, among others, also emphasized that 
destruction and national implementation are both 
critical to the Convention. 
 
----------------------- 
ARTICLE X CONSULTATIONS 
----------------------- 
 
¶12. (U) Informal consultations on Article X were held 
on Friday, March 28.  Facilitator Jitka Brodska 
announced her intention of relinquishing her role as 
facilitator at the end of May.  She noted that one 
more round of informal consultations is planned for 
mid May on the topic of "readiness to provide 
assistance" and the Iranian proposals on victims of 
chemical weapons. 
 
¶13. (U) Technical Secretariat Assistance and 
Protection Branch (APB) personnel gave a presentation 
which attempted to both summarize and elaborate on 
the Director-General's report on the status of 
implementation of Article X.  The German delegate 
expressed a desire to see a clearer summary and more 
statistics.  As the discussion continued, a running 
theme became the need for clarification of how APB 
activities are selected and evaluated.  The Italian 
delegate made a strong call for more information 
regarding objectives and pointed out the need for 
evaluation set against targets. 
 
¶14. (U) APB representatives noted that evaluations by 
participants, National Authorities, and the TS take 
place after projects are completed.  They stated that 
considerable effort is made to ensure that 
appropriate personnel attend training and that "train 
the trainer" courses were the ideal.  The APB 
representative noted that demand for training and 
assistance is greater than what budget constraints 
allow the TS to supply.  He noted a need for greater 
voluntary contributions which currently cover 
approximately 35 per cent of expenses, the rest 
coming from the regular budget. 
 
¶15. (U) Delrep repeated our concern regarding 
obligatory Article X Paragraph 4 reporting that has 
declined since last year.   The APB representative 
acknowledged that there may have been State Parties 
that participated in an APB program that had not 
submitted a report, despite every effort to encourage 
them to do so. 
 
¶16. (U) APB's plan of activities for 2008 was not 
discussed as a separate agenda item.  The facilitator 
closed the meeting by noting that this item had been 
covered in discussions of the DG's report. In general 
terms, there was an agreement to focus on a further 
definition of goals and a better evaluation of 
activities.  APB pointed out that a volunteer is 
still needed for a Joint Exercise (similar to the one 
held in Ukraine in 2005) possibly to be held in 2009. 
The preference would be to hold the exercise in some 
other geographical area in order to work in different 
climatic conditions. 
 
------------ 
GENEVA GROUP 
------------ 
 
¶17. (U) On March 21, Angela Peart (Canada) and Mike 
Byers (Australia) co-chaired a meeting of the Geneva 
Group to discuss a draft report on the OPCW (emailed 
to ISN/CB and IO/MPR).  There was general agreement 
on the report, with the UK, Germany, and Japan 
providing minor additions.  Peart promised to 
circulate the final report after forwarding it to 
Geneva; the report is expected to be addressed at a 
pre-Expert Level Meeting, scheduled to take place in 
Geneva on April 3. 
 
¶18. (U) Delrep highlighted U.S. concern that the OPCW 
does not tap into its Working Capital Fund despite 
cash-flow problems, due in large part to late receipt 
of assessed contributions.  Other reps agreed to 
engage the TS, specifically the DG, on the issue. 
Byers noted that he will be stepping down as co-chair 
and asked for interested replacements to contact 
Peart. 
 
¶19. (U) Javits sends. 
 
Gallagher