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S E C R E T GENEVA 000780 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR T, VC AND EUR/PRA 
DOE FOR NNSA/NA-24 
CIA FOR WINPAC 
JCS FOR J5/DDGSA 
SECDEF FOR OSD(P)/STRATCAP 
NAVY FOR CNO-N5JA AND DIRSSP 
AIRFORCE FOR HQ USAF/ASX AND ASXP 
DTRA FOR OP-OS OP-OSA AND DIRECTOR 
NSC FOR LOOK 
DIA FOR LEA 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/24/2019 
TAGS: KACT MARR PARM PREL RS US START
SUBJECT: START FOLLOW-ON NEGOTIATIONS, GENEVA (SFO-GVA-V): 
HEADS AND DEPUTY HEADS OF DELEGATION MEETING, SEPEMBER 21, 
2009 
 
Classified By:  A/S Rose E. Gottemoeller, United States 
START Negotiator.  Reasons:  1.4(b) and (d). 
 
¶1.  (U) This is SFO-GVA-V-001. 
 
¶2.  (U) Meeting Date:  September 21, 2009 
                Time:  10:15 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. 
               Place:  Russian Mission, Geneva 
        Participants: 
 
U.S.                               Russia 
 
Assistant Secretary Gottemoeller   Ambassador Antonov 
Ambassador Ries                    Mr. Koshelev 
Dr. Warner 
 
¶3.  (S) On Monday, September 21, 2009 at 10:15 a.m., a coffee 
took place at the Russian Mission prior to the start of the 
first plenary meeting of the session.  Ambassador Antonov 
opened the discussion by noting the very positive nature of 
President Obama's decision on the missile defense sites in 
Poland and the Czech Republic, which had taken place on 
September 16.  He then stated interest in further 
developments in U.S. missile defense programs, raising a 
long-standing Russian concern that mobile components of 
missile defense may take on a strategic character.  For that 
reason, he said, Ambassador Kislyak had requested in 
Washington that a team be sent to Geneva to brief Russian 
technical experts on present U.S. plans.  Minister of Foreign 
Affairs Lavrov, he said, had urgently requested such a 
briefing, in order to be prepared for the upcoming meeting 
between the U.S. and Russian Presidents.  The meeting was 
requested in Geneva, he explained, because all of the best 
Russian technical experts on missile defenses were 
participating on the START Delegation.  We could set aside 
some time one afternoon, Antonov said, for them to be briefed. 
 
¶4.  (S) A/S Gottemoeller said that she would pass the message 
back to Washington, but that it would be difficult to 
organize such a briefing in Geneva, most of all because the 
two delegations should stay focused on the START talks.  Very 
little time remains before December, she said, and the 
delegations really need to focus their attention.  However, 
she knew that Amb Kislyak would be briefed by the White House 
if he had not been briefed already.  (Begin comment:  This 
briefing did take place on September 21 in Washington.  End 
comment.)  Furthermore, the United States intended to provide 
a thorough technical briefing to the Russian side just as 
soon as it could be scheduled. 
 
¶5.  (S) Antonov turned to START.  He said the Russian side 
had gotten the go-ahead from the President's office to hand 
over their draft of the treaty annex, which would consolidate 
into one document the multiple documents that in START had 
covered inspections, conversion or elimination, data 
exchange, notifications, and other matters.  The text would 
be provided in Russian.  When Gottemoeller noted that it was 
difficult to work without an informal English translation 
provided by the Russian side, Antonov apologized for the lack 
of depth on the Russian language services bench.  He said it 
was his problem, but he asked for understanding:  he simply 
did not have enough translators.  He stated that he had 
invited Mr. Artemyev, an experienced hand who had retired, to 
 
 
join the delegation as an expert, so that he now had four 
translators and an expert who could help with conforming. 
 
¶6.  (S) Gottemoeller noted that the Presidents would be 
meeting later in the week, and that President Obama would 
give a generally positive assessment of the negotiations so 
far, but stress the need to accelerate the pace of work. 
Antonov said that if the two Presidents agreed on that point 
publicly, it would help him to force the pace with his 
delegation.   Gottemoeller then turned to the schedule that 
the U.S. side had proposed, including work in Geneva through 
October 2, then a break to return to capitals October 5-9, 
and a meeting in Moscow during the week of October 11 for a 
small group made up of the U.S. agency heads.  The 
delegations would then return to Geneva on or about October 
19, and begin meeting in continuous session until the treaty 
was completed.  Antonov said that he could see the schedule 
clearly through November 1, and he agreed to the U.S. team's 
proposal, including the proposal for a small team to come to 
Moscow.  However, the Russian Delegation would return to 
Moscow for a week at the beginning of November.  All the 
Russian Delegation members would want to check their work 
with superiors in their agencies, he explained, and this 
could only be done by going to Moscow.  Gottemoeller asked if 
Antonov would be willing to leave experts behind to work 
during the week of October 5, and he answered that he was not 
willing to do so.  They cannot work without me, he said, they 
need a babysitter. 
 
¶7.  (S) Antonov commented that he is not against staying in 
Geneva, and may be willing to do so later, but at the moment 
he still needed to keep closely in touch with Moscow, to 
ensure that the Russian Delegation is going in the right 
direction.  My assumption, he said, is that we have a lot in 
common in the treaty, but many details of the accompanying 
protocols will be different.  Moreover, he did not yet know 
how the U.S. side would handle the specific proposals that 
the Russian side had made about missile defense and other 
issues.  As a personal idea, he said, maybe we should fix 
something in this treaty about the U.S. decision on the third 
missile defense site. 
 
¶8.  (S) Gottemoeller remarked that the United States had 
already moved beyond the third site project thanks to 
President Obama's decision, and it would be strange to record 
an ephemeral moment in treaty language.  Antonov then said 
that maybe it would not be appropriate to mention the third 
site decision in the treaty text, but it was an important 
decision for the Russian side and they wanted to understand 
more about it.  For that reason, he said, the Russian side 
wants to examine the U.S. proposal closely so that Moscow can 
decide whether it has the basis to start cooperating on 
missile defense.  He asked again for a team to brief Russian 
missile experts, and Gottemoeller reiterated that she would 
pass the request to Washington. 
 
¶9.  (S) Gottemoeller ended the meeting by noting that the 
U.S. side was ready to begin conforming the draft "Agreement 
on Principles and Procedures for Completion of Continuous 
Monitoring Activities at the Monitored Facility at Votkinsk," 
without prejudice to the U.S. position that continuous 
monitoring should play a role in the new START agreement. 
Antonov acknowledged the point, and agreed that Sergei 
 
 
Koshelev could meet with Jerry Taylor on the margins of the 
current START negotiating round, to carry out the conforming 
exercise. 
 
¶10.  (U) Documents exchanged.  None. 
 
¶11.  (U) Gottemoeller sends. 
GRIFFITHS