US embassy cable - 03COLOMBO1712

C O N F I D E N T I A L COLOMBO 001712 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR SA, SA/INS, NP, T, S/CT 
NSC FOR E. MILLARD 
 
 
E.O. 12958:   DECL: 10-02-13 
TAGS: PREL, PGOV, KNNP, MNUC, PARM, CE 
SUBJECT:  Joint demarche on GSL regarding Proliferation 
Security Initiative (PSI) 
 
Refs:  (A) Colombo 1708, and previous 
-      (B) State 254587 
-      (C) State 272740 
 
(U) Classified by Ambassador Jeffrey J. Lunstead. 
Reasons 1.5 (b,d). 
 
1.  (U) On October 1, Ambassador, plus 
Ambassadors/Charges/DCM's from UK, Italy, Germany, 
France, Australia and Netherlands and Japan -- all of 
the PSI members with resident missions in Colombo -- 
called on GSL Acting Foreign Secretary Sarala Fernando, 
MFA Legal Adviser Rohan Perera and MFA Director General 
for European Political Affairs Pamela Dean to make 
demarche on PSI requested in Ref C. 
 
2.  (C) UK Hicomm Evans led off by noting the purpose of 
the demarche and the importance of the issue.  He then 
passed off to Ambassador Lunstead who expressed desire 
of PSI members to gain support from Sri Lanka and desire 
to learn about Sri Lanka's legal authorities and 
enforcement capabilities.  He noted that Colombo's busy 
container port made Sri Lanka an important player in 
this regard.  He then handed off to Australian DCM who 
explained the recent Coral Sea interdiction exercise. 
All other participants in demarche then expressed their 
seriousness in joining the PSI demarche. 
 
3.  (C) Acting Foreign Secretary Fernando said she could 
give only a preliminary response now, that Sri Lanka of 
course would support stopping the proliferation of WMD. 
The GSL had some questions, however, and she then turned 
to Legal Adviser Rodrigo.  He said that as a lawyer he 
found the PSI Principles "interesting." Concentrating on 
at-sea issues, he said that Sri Lanka believed that 
freedom of the high seas was not unrestricted, and could 
be used only for lawful purposes.  PSI, he said, was a 
"further step," and wondered from a legal perspective 
how it would find wide-spread acceptance.  He wondered 
also about authority to board vessels on the high seas. 
Using material from Ref C, Ambassador gave some partial 
answers, noting that he was not a lawyer.  He promised 
to give the MFA the legal material in Ref C and that if 
MFA could give us specific legal questions, we would 
attempt to obtain answers. 
 
4.  (C) FonSec then turned to more functional questions, 
wondering just how PSI would work. Would there be a 
request from all members to take action, or from some, 
or just one?  Ambassador said that PSI was not a formal 
structure, and UK HiComm added that it would be ad hoc, 
presumably with intelligence being passed through 
existing channels with a request that action be taken. 
 
5.  (C) FonSec added again that the GSL could support 
PSI in principle.  She promised a more detailed 
response, but said the MFA would have to coordinate with 
line ministries, and doubted that response would be 
available before the Oct 9-10 London PSI meeting.  Sri 
Lanka, she said, "might well get involved."  She 
suggested that support from regional organizations such 
as ASEAN would be useful, and further suggested that the 
US raise the issue at the Indian Ocean Rim Countries 
meeting next week. 
 
6.  (C) COMMENT:  We worked together with UK to 
carefully orchestrate this meeting to provide strong 
impression PSI is genuine multilateral initiative of 
great importance to all members.  We think it worked. 
END COMMENT. 
 
7.  (U) Minimize considered. 
 
LUNSTEAD