VZCZCXRO4396
PP RUEHAG RUEHROV RUEHSL RUEHSR
DE RUEHVT #0069/01 0331630
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 021630Z FEB 10
FM AMEMBASSY VALLETTA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 2536
INFO RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RHEFHLC/DEPT OF HOMELAND SECURITY WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHDC PRIORITY
RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEAWJA/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHDC PRIORITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 VALLETTA 000069 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR NEA/FO ECATALANO AND ISN/RA RNEPHEW 
DEPARTMENT ALSO FOR S/CT PSCHULTZ, EUR/ERA ANARDI, L/LEI 
KPROPP, A/GIS/IPS/PRV CTHOMAS, PM/SNA KAMEND AND USEU/ECON 
LSNYDER 
JUSTICE FOR TBURROWS AND MWARREN 
DHS FOR MSCARDAVILLE AND JKROPF AND JBEDNARZ 
TREASURY FOR FOR JYOO AND CGREENE 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/02/2020 
TAGS: AF ECON ECPS EUN IR KCRM KHLS KPAO KTIA MT
NATO, PARM, PGOV, PREL, PTER, KTFN, CON, UNSC 
SUBJECT: MALTA SUPPORTIVE ON IRAN SANCTIONS, DATA SHARING, 
AND AFGHANISTAN; OPEN TO PFP SOFA 
 
REF: A. STATE 09124 
     ¶B. STATE 8403 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Douglas W. Kmiec For reasons 1.4 (B) AND (D) 
 
¶1.  (C) Summary: On February 1 Ambassador Kmiec met with 
Maltese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Tonio Borg 
to discuss a wide range of curently pending issues and U.S. 
Government requests.  Results of the meeting include (1) a 
Maltese commitment to train Afghan civil servants; (2) 
Malta's agreement to support future international sanctions, 
and to consider US requests for unilateral sanctions in due 
course, against Iran if it persists in noncompliance with 
international agreements relating to its nuclear program; (3) 
Malta's agreement that U.S. and EU data privacy regimes are 
essentially comparable and that the Terrorist Financing 
Tracking Program should continue; and (4) an indication that 
Malta will move forward toward likely signature of the NATO 
Partnership for Peace SOFA Agreement. 
 
GOM to Support the Civilian &Surge8 in Afghanistan 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Ambassador offered the thanks of the United States 
to DPM/FM Borg for Malta,s contribution to the effort to 
have a &civil surge8 in Afghanistan by agreeing to 
contribute 50-60,000 euro to train Afghan civil servants. 
The Foreign Minister indicated that he recognized the amount 
was modest but it was significant in terms of healthy 
relationships between the GOM and the United States ) a 
matter which the FM said he explicitly addressed in a meeting 
of the European diplomatic corps in Malta during the time the 
Ambassador was in Washington, D.C. for the Chief of Mission 
conference.  The Ambassador again indicated his appreciation 
on behalf of President Obama, and related to the FM how 
Ambassador Holbrooke had stressed at the COM conference the 
importance assigned to any size donation.  Borg expressed the 
hope that the donation could be made &in kind8 or at least 
not more than half donated in Euros, but that in any event, 
the Foreign Minister appreciated the effort being made by 
President Obama, which he said amounted to &the last best 
hope8 to bring stability and needed security to the region. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) Foreign Minister Borg also indicated that 
consideration of Malta,s constitutionally-mandated 
neutrality, properly understood, did not affect Malta,s 
ability to be part of the effort to bring stability to 
Afghanistan since there was no pre-arranged defense pact that 
was being implemented and no military installation of a 
foreign power was being located on the sovereign territory of 
Malta.  The FM said the neutrality debate has now blossomed 
into a full-scale national re-examination of Malta,s role in 
foreign affairs.  In particular, the FM indicated that he had 
accepted a debate of the issue in general in the 
Parliament,s Foreign and European Affairs Committee February 
¶2.  The FM, together with Parliamentary Secretary for Public 
Dialogue and Information Christopher Said and the Prime 
Minister,s Defense Advisor, Vanessa Frazier (who holds a 
position which in substance is the equivalent of the Defense 
Secretary to Malta), will square off against Michael Frendo, 
a Nationalist MP and Chairman of the Committee, who has 
opposed an expansion of Malta,s role. 
 
Future sanctions actions on Iran 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶4. (SBU) In the same meeting, pursuant to Ref A, Ambassador 
Kmiec met with the FM for the purpose of ascertaining and 
discussing the government of Malta,s position with respect 
to recent efforts to address Iran,s noncompliance with UNSC 
sanctions and related agreements.  After having outlined Ref 
A points -- the failure of the Iran government to support the 
IAEA proposal for refueling the Tehran research reactor; 
Iran,s failure to facilitate the IAEA,s full investigation 
of its previously clandestine uranium enrichment plant at 
Qom; Iran, failure to meet with the P5  1 before the end of 
October on nuclear issues; and the increasing humanitarian 
concern with Iran,s basic disregard of civil liberty (e.g., 
the execution and jailing of government protestors that very 
 
VALLETTA 00000069  002 OF 004 
 
 
afternoon) -- Ambassador Kmiec requested that the Government 
of Malta (GOM) support the United States, as needed, in the 
enforcement of existing sanctions, and were that to prove 
insufficient, in the pursuit and implementation of 
appropriate new sanctions. 
 
¶5. (C) In response to the request of the United States, the 
FM indicated that it is always Malta,s preference to act 
multilaterally.  For this reason, Malta certainly would 
support the UNSC sanctions as they presently exist and apply. 
 Likewise, should Iran continue its urananium enrichment in 
ways strongly suggesting a nuclear weapon to be the purpose, 
the GOM would support new, &budget targeted8 sanctions that 
could be shown by the USG to have likely influence. 
 
¶6. (C) With respect to magnifying the impact of new Security 
Council resolutions by undertaking unilateral efforts (by way 
of example) to freeze the assets of IRISL (now doing business 
in Malta as Royal Mediterranean Shipping) or to go even 
further and freeze assets of companies doing business with 
IRISL, GOM is unlikely at this point to see the necessity of 
such action, but would remain open to it.  Again, the FM 
said, sanctions ought to be &judiciously and 
proportionately8 applied and only as &a last resort.8 
Unilateral actions could well harm the interest of the U.S. 
and others working to limit the spread of nuclear weaponry, 
the FM argued, since closing the Maltese port would just push 
Iran to another Mediterranean venue which would presumably be 
available and outside the reach of Western consideration. 
Nevertheless, the Foreign Minister stressed that unilateral 
actions were not impossible to conceive, since, after all, 
Malta already has unilaterally directed its banks to be wary 
of, if not outright decline, Iranian deposits. 
 
¶7. (C) Ambassador Kmiec reassured the Foreign Minister that 
there would be a continuation of diplomatic efforts with 
Iran, and these would be suspended only after the application 
of a reasonable deadline, and then, in accordance with the 
direction of the President, and then only reluctantly.  In 
other words, it is fair to see the Malta approach as 
coincident with the U.S. approach of carefully applied 
sanctions pursued only when all reasonable prospects for 
diplomatic agreement had been exhausted.  However, the 
Ambassador stressed that patience is wearing thin in 
Washington, with noncompliance of the government of Iran 
together with suggestions that the acquisition of materials 
necessary for nuclear weapons are proceeding apace, with any 
&dissenting voices8 eliminated or dispatched by the 
harshest of means.  The Foreign Minister said the United 
States could count on the government of Malta ¬ to 
unilaterally block8 any effort at new sanction through the 
&GOM voice.8  Presumably this would be an assurance not to 
block consensus at any EU forum seized of the issue. 
 
Sharing of Terrorist Information and Data Privacy 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
¶8. (SBU) On a third topic, Ambassador, per Ref B, raised the 
issue of the protection of data privacy as the U.S. and EU 
endeavored to share information on terrorists.  Describing at 
some length the initiatives whereby the United States had 
seemingly reached significant common ground with European 
Union on issues of data privacy, the Ambassador advised the 
FM that, nevertheless, there may be an effort afoot to undo 
this substantial agreement by fostering a misunderstating or 
misstatement of the differences between the US and EU 
regimes.  The EU and U.S. data privacy regimes are different 
in means, but they are sufficiently compatible in substantive 
direction, that one cannot be said to be greatly more 
protective of practical privacy than the other.  Moreover, to 
overstate data privacy differences is to underappreciate the 
importance of trans-Atlantic justice and law enforcement 
relations of obtaining and sharing information. 
 
¶9. (SBU) Ambassador Kmiec alerted the Foreign Mister that on 
or about February 9, the Terrorist Financing Tracking 
Program(TFTP) would be coming up for a vote in the European 
Parliament (EP).  Suggesting that the TFTP may be at risk of 
being vetoed by the Parliament, Ambassador Kmiec asked the 
 
VALLETTA 00000069  003 OF 004 
 
 
GOM to discourage this effort.  The FM agreed that Malta 
would not undermine the common ground that reasonably assured 
citizen privacy, even as the protection of data was 
differently accomplished in the United States in the European 
Union.  The FM noted, following the Ambassador,s discussion, 
that he was glad to know that the US protections do extend to 
anyone within the jurisdiction of the United States whether 
they be citizens or noncitizens, even as the U.S. protections 
are often mischaracterized as applying only to American 
citizens. 
 
¶10. (SBU) Again, the Ambassador alerted the Foreign Minister 
that the EP,s internal discussions may be continuing to 
overstate the difference of privacy protection between the 
European Union and the United States, and the Ambassador 
hoped that the GOM would not be scared off.  In particular, 
with respect to the interim TFTP agreement signed by the 
United States an the EU on November 30, 2009 which had been 
scheduled to provisionally enter into force after signature 
but before ratification on February 1, 2010 and expire no 
later than October 31, 2010, the Ambassador asked the FM that 
the GOM either support the ratification of the agreement &as 
is & in light of the dozen or so common principles 
protecting privacy between the United States and EU or, 
should the EP debate raise a doubt as to the extent to which 
the United States adequately protects data privacy that the 
GOM would not oppose the agreement per se, but instead merely 
vote to delay the ratification of the TFTP program for nine 
months through the expedient of adopting a nonbinding 
resolution raising any doubt over the sufficiency of the 
privacy protection, as Malta might then see it. 
 
¶11. (SBU) The Foreign Minister indicated that while there may 
be doubts about the protection of privacy under the 
agreement; if there was opposition of the type the Ambassador 
described, the GOM would very likely vote to delay the vote 
on the ratification rather than vote against the agreement 
and its ratification itself.  The Foreign Minister said that 
he would alert Mr. Simon Busuttil who is the European 
People,s Party Coordinator in the European Parliament,s 
Committee for Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (the 
LIBE Committee), since it is there where the FM anticipated 
an issue such of this would be scrutinized before emergence 
on the floor of the EP. 
 
Partnership for Peace (PfP) SOFA 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶12. (C) Finally, Ambassador and FM Borg discussed outside of 
the presence of note takers the prospect of Malta executing 
the PfP SOFA.  The Foreign Minister indicated that the Prime 
Minister was now prepared to go forward, provided that the 
Foreign Minister and Ambassador Kmiec agree on terms.  The 
Ambassador clarified that it is important to understand the 
framework of the process; specifically, that the Ambassador 
is not representing the &other side8; nor for that matter 
is the State Department.  Indeed, the Ambassador said a good 
way to conceive of the PfP SOFA is as the basic &rules of 
the road8 (or in this case, territorial sea).  Moreover, 
that process occurs under the auspices of the Partnership for 
Peace office of NATO, and under the supervision of a NATO 
legal adviser.  In short, the Foreign Minister was requested 
to execute the NATO/PfP SOFA and advised it was not up to the 
US Government to accept or reject any reservations, but to 
NATO. 
 
¶13. (C) While recognizing that Malta has concerns pertaining 
to sovereign jurisdiction and some national laws (e.g., 
relating to the wearing of uniforms, carrying of weapons, 
etc.), which are contrary to PfP SOFA provisions, Ambassador 
Kmiec urged the FM not to make any gratuitous reservation or 
modification to the standard document if at all possible, and 
he promised to forward a copy by messenger.  The FM said he 
appreciated that the document (i.e., Article VII on 
jurisdiction) was a great improvement over the &one sided8 
document which had been presented to GOM by the U.S. several 
years ago.  This is critical to progress on this issue said 
the FM, since matters should go well &unless the opposition 
stirs up the anger and suspicion among the public through the 
 
VALLETTA 00000069  004 OF 004 
 
 
NATO label.8  Ambassador Kmiec reminded the FM that other 
neutral nations, such as Switzerland and Sweden, had executed 
a version of the PfP SOFA, as had Russia.  The Ambassador 
said he was personally willing to comment upon the proposed 
interlineations of the FM, but that ultimately, it was the 
NATO legal representative in Brussels that would accept 
Malta,s subscription to the Agreement for &NATO8 ) an 
acronym the FM said he wished could be kept out as much as 
possible of the public discussion. 
KMIEC