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USEU BRUSSELS

C O N F I D E N T I A L STATE 034419 
 
 
MOSCOW PASS VLADIVOSTOK 
MOSCOW PASS YEKATERINBURG 
HELSINKI PASS ST. PETERSBURG 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/08/2019 
TAGS: KNNP PARM TSLP RS
SUBJECT: 48TH MEETING OF THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE AND 
TECHNOLOGY CENTER  (ISTC) GOVERNING BOARD, MOSCOW 
 
Classified By: ISN/CTR Director Matthias Mitman, Reasons 1.4 (b), (d) 
 
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SUMMARY 
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¶1. (SBU) Summary: The ISTC Governing Board's (GB) 48th 
meeting in Moscow on March 26 focused on transforming the 
Center to make it more relevant to changed global 
nonproliferation threats in a way that would maintain GoR 
support for the Center.  Russian MFA and Rosatom officials 
argued that the Center's primary mission -- redirection of 
former Russian weapons scientists -- has been successfully 
completed and that member states now should draft a new or 
revised agreement reformulating ISTC objectives if the Center 
is to continue operating.  The GoR officials also noted the 
ISTC's upcoming 15th Anniversary should emphasize that it has 
achieved its nonproliferation goals in Russia. 
 
¶2. (SBU) In separate meetings with ISN/CTR Director Matthias 
Mitman and ESTcouns on the margins of the GB meeting, Russian 
Academy of Science (RAS) and RosAtom officials stressed the 
need to develop a new Russian legal framework for a 
transformed ISTC.  The current ISTC charter was provisionally 
applied by Russian government decree in 1993, pending Duma 
ratification.  Since this was designed to be a temporary 
solution to launch the ISTC, RAS and RosAtom officials 
signaled that the Russian MFA believes a new legal basis 
should be created as the ISTC moves beyond its original 
mission of scientist redirection in Russia.  In the coming 
months, the U.S. will work with the GoR and other ISTC 
partners to develop and implement new strategies to transform 
the Center, including the possibility of amending the 
existing agreement.  End Summary. 
 
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ISTC TRANSFORMATION 
------------------- 
 
¶3. (U) The ISTC Governing Board (GB) held its 48th meeting in 
Moscow on March 26. The GB continued earlier discussions on 
transforming the Center into a more efficient and relevant 
organization for scientific cooperation, including on 
nonproliferation and counterterrorism issues.  ISN/CTR 
Director Matthias Mitman and ISN/CTR Section Chief Kathryn 
Insley led Department participation. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Echoing a theme heard before at meetings of the ISTC 
GB and of the Global Partnership (GP) Against the Spread of 
Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction, Russian 
representatives (MFA and Rosatom) at the GB meeting stressed 
that redirection of former weapons scientists, the primary 
nonproliferation goal incorporated in the 1993 Agreement 
establishing the ISTC, has been fully accomplished in Russia. 
 Accordingly, the existing Agreement -- which had never been 
ratified by the Duma but had been "provisionally applied" for 
the past 15 years on the basis of a Yeltsin decree -- should 
be amended to reflect this fact clearly. Russian officials 
stated that the old ISTC mission might still retain some 
relevance in so far as the lessons learned in Russia might 
now be applied to areas outside Russia where a proliferation 
risk still existed.  One Russian suggestion was that the 
ISTC's mission be linked with that of the Global Partnership 
and that this be reflected in a new ISTC agreement. 
 
¶5. (SBU) GB members acknowledged the success of the ISTC in 
accomplishing its original nonproliferation mission of 
scientist redirection in Russia.  At the same time, the U.S. 
and several of the other Board members made the point that 
the ISTC continued to have an important role as a nexus of 
international nonproliferation cooperation and that any 
transformation of the ISTC should reflect this.  These 
exchanges followed informal March 4-5 discussions on 
the same topics at U.S.-hosted working level meetings in 
Paris.  (Note: Russia did not attend the Paris meetings.) 
 
¶6. (C) The Russian Party agreed to submit a paper outlining 
its vision for a transformed ISTC at the upcoming ISTC 
Coordination Executive Committee meeting in Ottawa on May 5, 
and asked that other Parties submit their proposals as well. 
In margin discussions, other Russian officials invited the 
U.S. and others to come forward first with proposals to amend 
or replace the existing Agreement. (Comment: This likely 
reflects the GoR's inability to develop a unified position on 
the future of the ISTC.  MFA and certain Rosatom officials 
apparently do not see a continued role for the ISTC, while 
others in Rosatom and the Russian Academy of Science would 
like it to evolve into a Center for international scientific 
collaboration along the lines of the U.S. perspective.  End 
Comment.) 
 
¶7. (SBU) In accordance with the decision of the GB on the 
question of ISTC transformation, the U.S. and other members 
will formulate interim proposals for the May 5 Coordination 
Executive Committee (CEC) meeting in Ottawa.  The CEC 
discussions should provide a basis for decisions to be taken 
at the next GB July meeting in Minsk, with a view to having 
an amended ISTC agreement (or other agreed-upon mechanism to 
institute transformation principles)available for a possible 
high-level event commemorating the ISTC's 15th anniversary in 
December. 
 
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SUSTAINABILITY 
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¶8. (U) The GB noted "with satisfaction the progress made" in 
implementation of sustainability plans for several research 
institutes: Khlopin Radium Institute (St. Petersburg, 
Russia), Institute of Physics and Power Engineering (Obninsk, 
Russia), and the Institute of Nuclear Physics in the National 
Nuclear Center (Kazakhstan).  The GB instructed the ISTC 
Secretariat to continue work on sustainability plans for: the 
Siberian Chemical Combine (Seversk, Russia), the former 
"Caustik" Pavlodar Chemical Plant (Kazakhstan), and the State 
Scientific Research Institute for Organic Chemistry and 
Technology and its Shikany branch.  The GB also asked the 
Secretariat to look for funding possibilities for the 
Boreskov Institute of Catalysis (Novosibirsk, Russia) and the 
Institute of Immunological Engineering in Lyubachanniy.  The 
GB reported that the Secretariat would begin preparing the 
next stage of the sustainability program, taking into account 
lessons learned and available budgetary means. 
 
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TAX ISSUES 
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¶9. (U) The Russian Ministry of Finance confirmed that grant 
recipients of ISTC funds will not be subject to taxation.  It 
was also noted that Value Added Tax (VAT) payments for the 
first quarter of 2001 and for May 2007 had now been refunded 
to ISTC.  The GB requested that the Secretariat continue to 
pursue with the Finance Ministry refund of other VAT paid 
2001 - 2007. 
 
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CENTER PERSONNEL ISSUE 
---------------------- 
 
¶10. (U) The GB discussed one long-standing personnel issue at 
length, reviewing the ISTC staff member's allegations and 
complaints to the ISTC Secretariat and its member 
governments.  As a result, the GB instructed the ISTC 
Executive Director to issue a letter to the staff member 
regarding the GB decision to affirm the suspension and 
subsequent actions by the ISTC Secretariat. 
 
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BILATERAL MEETINGS 
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¶11. (C) On March 27, RAS Vice President Nikolai Laverov told 
ISN/CTR Director Matthias Mitman and ESTcouns that RosAtom 
Deputy Spasskiy had recently sent a letter to President 
Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin about the ISTC.  Laverov 
noted that some GoR officials had been concerned that ISTC 
activities had stimulated leakage of classified Russian 
information and had commercial aspects inconsistent with 
Russian intellectual property laws.  Laverov stated, however, 
that Spasskiy's letter did not address these issues but 
rather the ISTC's legal foundation.  Spasskiy apparently 
believes that, because the ISTC has accomplished its original 
mission, the 1993 Yeltsin decree to apply the ISTC treaty 
provisionally should not be used as a legal basis for a 
transformed Center. 
 
¶12. (C) Laverov agreed that the Yeltsin decree remained valid 
and the ISTC could legally operate in Russia indefinitely, 
pending further GoR executive action or passage of a law by 
the Duma.  Laverov suggested that the Duma should enact new 
legislation to harmonize the ISTC's charter with existing 
Russian laws passed since 1993.  He did not underestimate the 
difficulty of this approach, and offered to support this 
approach with Duma members. 
 
¶13. (C) In a separate March 27 meeting, RosAtom Senior 
Advisor Lev Ryabev told Mitman and ESTcouns that the current 
situation of the ISTC is as complicated as it was in 1992 and 
that finding a solution now would be equally difficult. 
Ryabev noted that the original ISTC charter was referred to 
as the "KGB Agreement" in honor of the three senior officials 
who made the Center possible (Russian FM Kozyrev, German FM 
Genscher, and SecState Baker.)  (Comment: The implication was 
clear - we will need senior-level engagement by the parties 
to reach a compromise on the ISTC's future. End comment.) 
 
¶14. (C) Ryabev suggested scrapping the language in the old 
ISTC charter, and suggested drafting a new document that 
would describe the parties' common interests in the Center 
and specify mechanisms for achieving them.  He stressed that 
he did not object to including non-proliferation as an ISTC 
objective, but cautioned this could generate an adverse 
reaction from other GoR ministries.  Ryabev proposed several 
cooperative S&T activities that he believed appropriate for a 
transformed ISTC, including research on detection of 
molecular nuclear particles and chemicals, non-proliferation 
consequences of the nuclear energy renaissance, security 
issues related to fast reactors using plutonium, reprocessing 
of spent fuel for generation IV fast reactors, and follow-on 
activities from the U.S-Russia 123 Agreement and the Global 
Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism.  He noted that many 
of the redirected Russian weapons scientists are now 
approaching retirement age and that the ISTC should focus on 
engaging younger scientists, including those working in the 
non-government sector who have WMD-applicable knowledge. 
 
¶15. (C) Ryabev underlined that a written document would be 
required for transforming the ISTC, although he did not 
respond to inquiries for more specifics.  He noted that, 
although the ISTC has many GoR stakeholders, the Russian MFA 
will play the most important role.  That said, he lamented 
that the internal reorganization within the MFA has hampered 
efforts to forge an interagency policy on the ISTC's future 
and that MFA Deputy Minister Ryabkov had yet to signal a 
clear MFA position. 
 
 
CLINTON