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S E C R E T GENEVA 000853 
 
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E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/21/2019 
TAGS: KACT MARR PARM PREL RS US START
SUBJECT: START FOLLOW-ON NEGOTIATIONS, GENEVA (SFO-GVA-V): 
(U) FIFTH MEETING OF THE INSPECTION PROTOCOL WORKING GROUP, 
SEPTEMBER 30, 2009 
 
REF: A. GENEVA 0831 (SFO-GVA-V-039) 
     ¶B. GENEVA 0774 (SFO-GVA-V-007) 
 
Classified By:  A/S Rose E. Gottemoeller, United States 
START Negotiator.  Reasons:  1.4(b) and (d). 
 
¶1.  (U) This is SFO-GVA-V-034. 
 
¶2.  (U) Meeting Date:  September 30, 2009 
                Time:  3:00 - 6:10 P.M. 
               Place:  Russian Mission, Geneva 
 
------- 
SUMMARY 
------- 
 
¶3.  (S) The fifth meeting of the Inspection Protocol Working 
Group (IPWG) focused on reviewing two sections of Joint Draft 
Text (JDT):  Section II, "Provisions Concerning the Legal 
Status of Inspectors and Aircrew Members," and Section IV, 
"Arrangements for Transportation."  (Section II of the 
Inspection Protocol, "Notifications," will be streamlined and 
moved into the Notifications Protocol.)  The approach used by 
the delegations in addressing these initial two sections has 
established the basis for the three-tier document desired by 
the U.S. delegation and now agreed to by the Russian 
delegation.  While key issues remain to be resolved, such as 
the numbers and types of inspection activities to be 
conducted, the number of inspectors involved in the various 
inspection activities and on the overall inspector list, and 
whether continuous monitoring of mobile ICBM production 
facilities is to be included in the treaty, it appears the 
foundation has been laid to make real progress in future 
meetings of the IPWG. 
 
¶4.  (S) The Russian delegation introduced a new concept 
related to payments for the cost for military aircraft 
transporting inspectors to and from the points of entry 
(POEs) when services are provided at those POEs. 
Specifically, the inspecting Party would pay the cost of 
parking and security, in addition to START's traditional 
payments for the costs of fuel, air navigation, and other 
airport services.  Additionally, the Russian delegation 
proposed that these services would be paid with a credit card 
at the time they were provided, rather than after the fact 
via billed reimbursement in accordance with current START 
practices. 
 
¶5.  (S) As this was the final working group meeting during 
this round of negotiations, the U.S. and Russian delegations 
agreed they had a better understanding of each other's views 
regarding inspection activities, and looked forward to 
completing the remaining effort. 
 
----------------------------------- 
LITTLE SMALL TALK AFTER THE LAWYERS 
----------------------------------- 
 
¶6.  (S) Col Ilin opened the meeting by stating that the 
Russian delegation had prepared language addressing the 
provisions for Air Transportation (see Paragraph 13).  Dr. 
Warner stated the U.S. delegation had tabled a draft text on 
September 24, 2009 (Ref A), and proposed reviewing the few 
 
 
remaining issues in Section II, "Provisions Concerning the 
Legal Status of Inspectors, Monitors, and Aircrew Members." 
He began by saying he was surprised to find that, after the 
spirited discussions during the previous session of the IPWG 
concerning one of the key privileges and immunities issues in 
the previous meeting, he had discovered that these provisions 
were contained in Article XI of the Russian-proposed START 
Follow-on Treaty (Ref B).  Warner said he believed that the 
text on this issue would be better placed in the Inspection 
Protocol and noted that there was no disagreement regarding 
the content.  Ilin said he would take a look at the relevant 
part of Russian-proposed treaty and his delegation would 
consider the U.S. proposal. 
 
-------------------------- 
DOUBLE DOUBLE - NO TROUBLE 
-------------------------- 
 
¶7.  (S) Warner addressed the text related to monitors and 
continuous monitoring activities in the ground transportation 
section by stating that such text would essentially be 
double-bracketed and all text beyond the first paragraph 
moved to the third level until resolution on the possible 
inclusion of continuous monitoring of mobile ICBM production 
into the treaty was reached.  Ilin agreed he did not want to 
spend time on editing text associated with supporting 
continuous monitoring. 
 
¶8.  (S) Warner continued to walk through the paragraphs of 
Section II of the Inspection Protocol, noting that Brown had 
provided additional input shown in brackets, concerning 
waiver of immunity from jurisdiction.  Ilin said the document 
would need to be reviewed by the Russian delegation's lawyer, 
Ms. Kotkova.  Ilin proposed that in paragraph 10(f), 
inspectors, monitors, and aircrew members would not have to 
pay taxes in addition to customs duties or other related 
charges, on their personal use items.  The delegations then 
moved to a discussion of Section IV of the JDT. 
 
---------------- 
COME FLY WITH ME 
---------------- 
 
¶9.  (S) The discussion on Section V, "Arrangements for 
Transportation," began with POEs and the related 
notifications.  Ilin agreed with provisions to establish two 
POEs and proposed to delete the provision requiring an 
immediate notification of changes to the POE.  He stated that 
neither Russia nor the United States had used this provision 
to change a POE and believed a 6-month notice of such a 
change in the form of an update to the Memorandum of 
Understanding (MOU) would be sufficient.  Ilin also proposed 
moving the list of Types of Inspection Airplanes from 
U.S.-proposed Annex 10 of the Inspection Protocol into the 
MOU.  The Russian Federation would enter "TBD," if such 
information were to be included in the MOU, since Russian 
inspection teams are routinely transported to and from the 
POE by commercial airlines.  He also stated that the 
U.S.-proposed text regarding the filing of flight plans was 
excessive and, since Russian inspection teams used commercial 
air, no special flight plan would be required. Warner stated 
that the U.S. delegation would consider moving the list of 
military air transport aircraft to the MOU, as well as the 
 
 
recommendations regarding notifications. 
 
¶10.  (S) Ilin had referenced the use of Open Skies aircraft 
in Section II and suggested deleting it from this section. 
Warner explained that, in principle, the U.S. delegation did 
not object to this proposal but expressed concerns with the 
synchronization of flights between the two types of 
activities, i.e., Open Skies missions and transporting START 
inspectors.  He stated that it would be easy for an Open 
Skies aircraft to deliver an inspection team in a timely 
manner.  However, since the missions often had differing 
timelines, the requirement for the two inspection teams to 
depart from the POE within 24 hours of arriving at that point 
would be difficult to meet.  He explained that the proposed 
treaty texts of both the U.S. and Russian sides retained the 
requirement that inspection teams for START Follow-on depart 
the POE within 24 hours of completing an inspection.  He also 
noted that the Open Skies Treaty contained the same 
requirement and wanted to ensure that the Russian delegation 
was aware of the challenges associated with fulfilling this 
requirement, since there would be a significant possibility 
that one of the two teams would be forced to depart before 
the other had returned to the POE. 
 
------------------------ 
ADDITION S'IL VOUS PLAIT 
------------------------ 
 
¶11.  (S) Ilin introduced a new concept related to payment for 
services for inspection airplanes while at the POE.  He 
proposed that charges for services rendered to inspection 
airplanes be paid for at the time the service is provided 
through the use of a credit card.  Ryzhkov stated that it was 
a practical matter in that the Russian Federation paid for 
the services up front and then provided a bill to the United 
States for payment at a later date.  A second and more 
important aspect of the Russian proposal was that parking and 
security protection costs formerly paid for by the inspected 
Party under START would be shifted to the inspecting Party. 
Warner noted that it appeared the Russian Federation was 
asking the United States to take on an additional cost 
obligation.  He explained that U.S. inspection teams were 
obligated to use military aircraft to travel to the Ulan Ude 
POE because there were no reliable commercial airline service 
options available into Ulan Ude.  As such, the United States 
would have to pay these additional costs while the Russian 
Federation, which relies almost solely on taking commercial 
flights to the U.S. POEs would not.  Warner asked for the 
Russian proposal in writing in order to better understand it. 
 
------- 
WRAP-UP 
------- 
 
¶12.  (S) Warner wrapped up the meeting by complimenting both 
parties for the progress made during the initial meetings of 
the IPWG.  Since it was the last meeting of this session, he 
wanted to review and identify the key issues remaining to be 
addressed in future rounds of the negotiations.  These 
included how to characterize the type of inspection 
activities, resolve the differences on the number of 
inspection activities conducted per year, and the size of the 
overall inspector list and individual inspection teams.  He 
 
 
went on to state that the most formidable challenge ahead 
appears to lie in the area of verifying heavy bomber 
armaments.  Neither the United States nor the Russian 
Federation currently keeps nuclear warheads deployed on 
bombers on a day-to-day basis so counting rules that only 
addressed uploaded armaments would result in a zero count for 
the numbers of strategic nuclear warheads "deployed" on heavy 
bombers.  The issues around possible accounting for and 
verification of armaments in the heavy bmber weapon storage 
areas constitute a challenge that would need to be discussed 
in the IPWG when the delegations reconvened. 
 
¶13.  Documents exchanged: 
 
Begin text of Russian-proposed language on air transportation: 
 
                                          Official Translation 
 
                                          To be Handed over on 
                                          October 1, 2009 
 
Proposals of the Russian Side for the Wording of the 
Section "Arrangements for Air Transportation" 
 
Paragraph 5.  "Each Party may use Open Skies airplanes 
conducting observation flights over the territory of the 
inspected Party for transportation of inspectors to and/or 
from points of entry, subject to compliance by the inspecting 
Party with the provisions provided for in paragraph 12 of 
subparagraph (sic) V of Section V of the Annex to the Treaty." 
 
Paragraph 12.  The inspected Party shall provide parking, 
security protection, fueling, and air navigation, airport 
facility, ground technical and commercial services, as well 
as additional services as requested, for inspection airplanes 
of the inspecting Party at the point of entry or the airport 
associated with the facility subject to continuous monitoring 
or monitored facility.  The cost of fueling, air navigation, 
airport facility, ground technical services and parking and 
security protection for each such airplane, as well as 
additional services as requested shall be borne by the 
inspecting Party. 
 
End Text. 
 
¶14.  (U) Participants: 
 
U.S.: 
 
Dr. Warner 
Mr. Blevins 
Ms. Bosco 
Mr. Buttrick 
Mr. DeNinno 
Maj Johnson 
Mr. McConnell 
Ms. Pura 
Mr. Smith 
Ms. Gesse (Int) 
 
RUSSIA 
 
Col Ilin 
 
 
Mr. Izrazov 
Mr. Kostuchenko 
Mr. Leontiev 
Col Novikov 
Mr. Pischulov 
Col Ryzhkov 
Mr. Shevchenko 
Mr. Vorontsov 
Mr. Zaitsev 
Ms. Komshilova (Int) 
 
¶15.  (U) Gottemoeller sends. 
RICHTER