VZCZCXRO5363
OO RUEHDBU RUEHFL RUEHKW RUEHLA RUEHNP RUEHROV RUEHSR RUEHTRO
DE RUCNDT #0384/01 1001241
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 101241Z APR 09
FM USMISSION USUN NEW YORK
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 6314
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
RUEHGG/UN SECURITY COUNCIL COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC IMMEDIATE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 USUN NEW YORK 000384 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/08/2019 
TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM UNSC UNOMIG RS GG
SUBJECT: GEORGIA: USUN DELIVERS USG PRELIMINARY RESPONSE TO 
UN NON-PAPER 
 
REF: A. SECSTATE 33583 
     ¶B. USUN 326 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Susan Rice for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) 
 
¶1. (C) SUMMARY.  Per Ref A instructions, Deputy PolCouns and 
Poloff shared the USG preliminary response to the UN 
Non-Paper on the future UN presence in Georgia (Ref B) with 
DPKO Director for Europe and Latin America, David Harland. 
Harland acknowledged U.S. views on the dimensions of the 
proposed security zones, but doubted that Russia would allow 
zones that were more expansive than exist today.  Harland 
said he agreed in principle with the six U.S. objectives for 
the UN mission, saying he would quibble only with the attempt 
to phase in executive policing as unattainable.  On the 
process for achieving a new mandate, Harland thought the 
ideal scenario would be for the U.S. and Russia to find 
common ground on security arrangements and elements of a 
mandate, which then could be used as the basis for achieving 
buy-in from Georgia and Abkhazia.  He thought pursuing a 
legal mandate for the UN without specifying a security regime 
would play into Russian attempts to weaken the UN presence on 
the ground.  END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2. (C) On April 8, Deputy PolCouns and Poloff delivered Ref A 
preliminary reaction to the UN's March 26 Non-Paper (Ref B) 
to DPKO Director for Europe and Latin America, David Harland. 
 The Non-Paper outlined recommendations for a future UN 
presence in Georgia, including a detailed description of a 
proposed security regime for Georgia/Abkhazia, which would be 
included in the SYG's report to the Security Council 
requested by Resolution 1866 (2009).  The discussion with 
Harland covered elements of the proposed security regime, 
U.S. objectives for the UN mission, and U.S. suggested 
options for reaching an agreement in the Council on a new 
mandate. 
 
¶3. (C) Responding to the U.S. response to elements of the 
security regime, Harland commented that the UN proposals 
"already cross all three Russian red-lines"-- they are 
symmetrical, they bind Russian forces to the regime, and they 
include the Kodori Valley.  Harland did not think it would 
make sense for the UN to propose something that was too far 
beyond either Russian or U.S. red-lines, since such proposals 
would be quickly discounted.  He said that earlier UN 
thinking on the "zones of confidence" had thus been revised 
in an attempt to find a proposal that could achieve some 
consensus.  In any case, Harland doubted that Russia would 
allow Ochamchire to be included in the regime, due to 
Russia's intention to use the port as a future home of the 
Black Sea Fleet.  He also explained why the UN had drapped an 
earlier suggestion for a 700 meter zone between border posts 
and the boundaries, commenting that the UN had feared it 
could create conditions that would allow for criminal 
activity in the areas between border posts. 
 
¶4. (C) Referring to U.S. objectives for a UN mission, Harland 
said he agreed with all of them, but he questioned whether 
the objective of establishing armed UN police units was 
achievable, pointedly saying, "if the Russians have not given 
a millimeter on this since 1994, what makes you think you 
will get this now?" 
 
¶5. (C) Referring to the process for achieving a new mandate, 
Harland stressed that he thought the best shot at getting a 
"credible" security regime confirmed by the Council in June 
would be for the U.S. and Russia to engage bilaterally in 
advance of the release of the SYG's report in order to reach 
an understanding on what is and what is not achievable, given 
our respective interests and redlines.  Harland believed that 
if the U.S. and Russia to come to an agreement on the basic 
elements of a security regime, based upon the UN non-paper, 
the U.S. and Russia would then be in a position to use our 
leverage with Georgia (U.S.) and the separatist entities 
(Russia) to obtain their agreement to the arrangement.  The 
Security Council would then be in a position to endorse a 
regime outlined in the SYG's report that would benefit from 
the support of all parties. 
 
¶6. (C) Harland said he thought the option of defining a 
mandate in the SYG's report without defining a security 
regime would play into Russian attempts to incrementally 
diminish the international presence in Abkhazia.  He did not 
believe it likely that Russia would want to give the UN any 
flexibility to grow its mandate, but instead would likely use 
delay tactics to prevent eventual agreement on a security 
regime, meanwhile using the lack of a regime to continue 
establishing de facto arrangements suitable to its interests 
on the Abkhaz side of the administrative boundary.  Harland 
said UNOMIG SRSG Johan Verbeke had a similar fear of Russian 
 
USUN NEW Y 00000384  002 OF 002 
 
 
intentions after watching Russia inflict what Harland cited 
as, "death by a thousand cuts" on the OSCE, after Russia had 
first agreed to a vague mandate that left the OSCE in Georgia 
too institutionally weak to resist Russians bent on its 
demise. 
 
¶7. (C) According to Harland, the United Kingdom had proposed 
a different option, whereby the SYG would present the Council 
with his best assessment of what was necessary, and the 
Security Council would then endorse it.  Harland thought this 
was not a viable option, because it would put the Council in 
the position of imposing its will on the parties, rather than 
endorsing an agreement among them.  Even though both the U.S. 
and U.K. options would give the Security Council a necessary 
fig-leaf to establish a mandate, he said, the parties, 
including Russia, would not be likely to honor a security 
regime that they had not been explicitly involved in 
creating.  He believed the outcome of such a process would be 
a "very weak arrangement on the ground", and therefore 
reiterated his suggestion for U.S.-Russia bilateral 
engagement. 
 
¶8. (C) According to Harland, the likely default option would 
be for interested parties to feed their comments on a 
security regime into DPKO, and expect DPKO to find common 
ground.  Harland did not think this method would yield the 
best result, since DPKO could only guess at the parties' 
redlines and would in the end have to make the determination 
about what trade-offs were necessary. 
Rice