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C O N F I D E N T I A L MOSCOW 003122 
 
SIPDIS 
 
GENEVA FOR JCIC, DEPT FOR T 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/27/2019 
TAGS: KNNP KACT PARM PREL START MCAP RS IR
SUBJECT: U/S TAUSCHER-DFM RYABKOV DECEMBER 7 MEETING 
 
Classified By: POL M/C Susan Elliott for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) 
 
¶1. (C) Summary: U/S Ellen Tauscher met with DFM Sergey 
Ryabkov in Moscow on December 7, 2009 to address P-5 
coordination in advance of the NPT Review Conference and 
missile defense cooperation.  They also discussed how to 
establish a political framework that would allow practical 
steps in strategic cooperation, including on missile defense. 
 U/S Tauscher gave Ryabkov a paper on a missile defense 
cooperation agreement.  Ryabkov said he had hoped to have a 
paper for her, but it was still in interagency coordination 
and would be provided later.  End summary. 
 
Fuel Banks 
---------- 
 
¶2. (C) Ryabkov expressed deep appreciation for U.S. support 
for the Angarsk fuel bank proposal.  U/S Tauscher described 
the IAEA Board approval of the Russian Angarsk proposal as a 
valuable part of a larger effort that should include action 
next spring on the IAEA NTI (Nuclear Threat Initiative) fuel 
bank proposal. 
 
NPT 
--- 
 
¶3. (C) U/S Tauscher noted importance of projecting to the 
international community that U.S. and Russia working together 
in advance of the NPT Review Conference.  We need to work on 
a joint P-5 statement.  We think the British proposal a good 
starting point.  Egyptian actions to push their agenda on the 
1995 Middle East resolution will make it difficult to get a 
good result in the Review Conference. 
 
¶4. (C) Ryabkov welcomed the approach of the new 
administration, singling out President Obama's Prague speech. 
 However, we had to be careful not to have an "unbearably" 
high level of ambition.   We must determine what can be done 
in the short and medium-term, and what had to be tackled 
long-term.  (Note: this is a theme that Ryabkov returned to 
several times.  While the GOR recognizes the bold approach of 
the U.S. to improve relations, Russia needed a more phased, 
step-by-step approach). 
 
¶5. (C) Ryabkov said the NPT was too important to fail.  The 
U.S. and Russia should work together before the conference to 
ensure success.  He asked what the impact of the Nuclear 
Posture Review would be on the U.S. approach at the Revcon. 
DASD Celeste Wallander said the review was on schedule for an 
early February 2010 release.  The NPR was based on a 
comprehensive process that benefited from bilateral 
consultations, although it was premature to discuss the 
results of the review before its release. 
 
¶6. (C) Ryabkov also noted the "time compression" for Senate 
ratification of several treaties, including START follow-on 
and CTBT, as had been raised earlier in the discussion on 
START.  Tauscher replied that the Administration was 
preparing in many ways for Senate ratification of the CTBT, 
including the Nuclear Posture Review, stockpile stewardship, 
a new NIE, and a National Academy of Sciences study due 
February 2010.  We would make a decision to go forward with 
ratification once we are ready and have the votes. 
 
¶7. (C) Tauscher and Ryabkov agreed that while the Chinese 
wanted to wait until after the April Global Nuclear Security 
Summit to focus on a P5 statement for the Revcon that was too 
late if we are to have a useful substantive statement. 
Rozhkov warned against including too many topics into the 
final communique, specifically military or HEU conversion. 
The negative guarantees issues and the 13-step program were 
important to the NAM (Non-Aligned Movement).  He pressed on 
the Russian proposals for the P5 statement, namely the 
language on a WMD-free Middle East, saying that if we could 
jointly work this issue with the Egyptians and other, we 
could overcome many of the problems. 
 
¶8. (C) Tauscher countered that she had just visited both 
Israel and Egypt, and found that the Egyptians admit 
privately that the real problem was not an Israeli program 
that might or might not exist, but the Iranian nuclear 
program.  The threat of proliferation and a Middle East 
nuclear arms race arose from Iranian actions, not Israeli 
actions.  We needed to find a way to address the 1995 
resolution in a manner acceptable to Egypt that can command 
consensus as well.  She talked to Egyptian Foreign Minister 
Aboul Gheit about drafting language.  This would not be easy, 
but was important.  Regarding the Russian proposals in their 
paper, there were some non-starters, such as proposing that 
all nuclear facilities in the region be under safeguards. 
 
¶9. (C) Tauscher said withdrawal from the NPT would be an 
important issue at the Revcon.  Countries had a right to 
withdraw, but this right should not be abused by parties that 
violate the Treaty.  We would like to work with Russia to 
come up with ways to prevent the abuse of the NPT as a way to 
avoid accountability.  Ryabkov said we had to use a common 
sense approach, in context of UNSCR 1887.  He said this issue 
would be controversial, and we had to avoid re-opening the 
NPT. Tauscher agreed re-opening the NPT would be 
counterproductive, and concurred in looking at making good 
use of UNSCR 1887. 
 
Iran 
---- 
 
¶10. (C) Tauscher thanked the Russian side for active 
participation in the Teheran Research Reactor (TRR) proposal, 
particularly Russia's assumption of responsibility for 
removal of LEU from Iran and delivery of finished fuel. 
Ryabkov acknowledged the close cooperation on the TRR, but on 
the larger issue of the Iranian nuclear program he noted that 
(in his opinion), Iran was acting within the limits of its 
safeguards agreement; what was unclear was its adherence to 
additional protocol.  In absence of that adherence, its 
peaceful intentions were unclear; on the other hand, there 
was no evidence of a military dimension of the Iranian 
program either.  If the U.S. insisted on pressing ahead with 
strong pressure before NPT conference, it would derail the 
Revcon.  Yet it was hard to see a compromise.  We would make 
it clear that the nuclear option is not acceptable for Iran, 
but in a way that was broadly acceptable to all parties 
including the Arab states. 
 
¶11. (C) Tauscher noted it was clear that, as stated in the 
Qom resolution, Iran continued to lie and obfuscate.  We have 
been trying to engage the Iranians for a long time.  Now the 
IAEA has adopted a strong resolution, and forwarded it to the 
UNSC.  The IAEA has uncovered extensive evidence that the 
Iranian program has a military dimension, and Iran has 
refused to cooperate with the IAEA to resolve these concerns. 
 
Nuclear Suppliers Group 
----------------------- 
 
¶12. (C) Ryabkov said Russia favored moving straight to the 
plenary with a cleared text.  NSG Consultative Group chair 
Goorevich would be circulating a text in the next few days. 
We needed to keep the Latin Americans from opening it up. 
The Turks could be problematic.  Rozhkov noted that at the 
last consultative group meeting, the Belarusians had had 
problems, but the Russians resolved the issue. Timbie said 
that the text of the strengthened guidelines has been 
completed, but it would take work with the Turks and South 
Africans to resolve political issues they had raised.  Brazil 
and Argentina were less likely to be problematic. 
 
Missile Defense 
--------------- 
 
¶13. (C) Tauscher gave Ryabkov a paper outlining a proposed 
Ballistic Missile Defense Cooperation Agreement.  She told 
Ryabkov such an agreement could provide the political basis 
for going forward with practical steps together on missile 
defense cooperation. 
 
¶14. (C) Ryabkov thanked Tauscher for the paper and promised a 
response.  He said there were opportunities for cooperation 
in the missile defense area once we have found the political 
premises.  As U/S Tauscher had said, we need the political 
before the practical.  He mentioned development of theater 
missile defense at the NATO-Russia Council as an example of 
what would be possible.  Ryabkov said he had hoped to have a 
paper of his own with Russian views, but it was still in 
interagency clearance, and he would provide it "soon."  In 
the meantime, we could proceed from the Joint Threat 
Assessment. 
 
¶15. (C) Ryabkov said the Deputy Secretary of the Russian 
Security Council Nazarov would be in Washington to lead the 
Russian side in the Joint Threat Assessment session on 
December 22 in Washington, and asked that Tauscher meet with 
Nazarov and help arrange other meetings for him.  She replied 
that she would be on travel that day, and undertook to 
E 
arrange for other appropriate officials to meet with him. 
 
¶16. (C) Ryabkov said the Russian side needed to further 
develop its thoughts on missile defense cooperation, and 
until that was done, it would be hard to agree to measures 
big or small, such as JDEC, although we could work together 
on a mutual assessment of threats.  He noted the discussion 
at the NATO-Russia Council of theater missile defense, adding 
that Russian ideas needed to be taken into account.  Russia 
needed to better define the political premises that would 
undergird extensive cooperation on missile defense. 
 
¶17. (C) Tauscher said that we should leverage each other's 
excellent technology against missile threats.  She hoped we 
could decide on areas to work together, such as data 
exchange, sensor cooperation, leading eventually to joint 
missile defense architectures.  She expressed the hope that 
there could be an experts meeting in Colorado Springs early 
in 2010. 
 
¶18. (C) DAS Frank Rose outlined a possible BMD cooperation 
agreement and handed over a proposed text (in English and 
Russian) for a legally binding executive agreement of ten 
years' duration which could be extended.  It would not be a 
traditional arms control agreement that would limit the 
parties' ability to create missile defenses, but rather 
concentrate on consultations and confidence building measures 
and joint activities.  DASD Wallander noted that the U.S. is 
talking to its NATO allies about missile defenses and wanted 
to include Russian ideas and interests in the process. 
 
¶19. (C) Ryabkov cited the collaborative process over Qom as a 
model.  Our experts should discuss these issues during the 
joint threat assessment, for example, on the "hundreds" of 
short- and medium-range missiles in Iran?  Tauscher said that 
when Nazarov came to Washington, we would want to share some 
of our intelligence community assessments with him, but 
looked forward to hearing Russian assessments. 
 
¶20. (C) U/S Tauscher encouraged moving away from mutual 
assured destruction and aim instead for mutual assured 
stability.  Under this approach, we could emphasize areas 
where we can cooperate.  Agreement on such an approach as a 
political matter could help guide future discussions between 
us.  Once we have agreement on a political context, experts 
could follow up on practical steps.  Potential areas where 
progress might be made in a framework of mutual assured 
stability include a missile defense cooperation agreement, 
steps to address non-strategic nuclear weapons, and European 
security cooperation to resolve the impasse caused by 
Russia's decision not to implement the CFE Treaty.  Ryabkov 
responded positively and looked forward to further 
elaboration of the concept of mutual assured stability. 
 
¶21. (SBU) Participants: 
 
U.S. 
 
Under Secretary Ellen Tauscher 
Ambassador John Beyrle 
DAS Frank Rose, State 
DASD Celeste Wallander, DOD 
RADM Randall Hendrickson, MDA 
Senior Advisor James Timbie, State 
Jon Shearer, DOE-Moscow 
Isabella Detwiler, Embassy ESTH 
Jules Silberberg, Embassy POL 
 
Russia 
 
DFM Sergey Ryabkov 
Oleg Burmistrov, acting director, MFA North America 
Oleg Rozhkov, deputy Director, MFA DVBR 
Aleksey Ubeyev, deputy director, Rosatom 
Aleksandr Novikov, deputy chief, treaties branch, MOD GUMVS 
Oleg Khodyrev, Security Council 
Vladimir Yermakov, section head, MFA DVBR 
Oleg Postnikov, counselor, MFA DVBR 
Aleksandr Shilin, counselor, MFA North America 
Denis Kolesnikov, attache, MFA North America 
Dmitriy Gusev, first secretary, MFA 
 
¶22. (U) Under Secretary Tauscher's office has reviewed this 
cable. 
Rubin