US embassy cable - 04TELAVIV1390

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 TEL AVIV 001390 
 
SIPDIS 
 
UNVIE FOR IAEA 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/04/2014 
TAGS: KNNP, PARM, MNUC, PREL, IS, IR, FR, GOI EXTERNAL 
SUBJECT: ISRAELI READOUT OF IRAN NUCLEAR CONSULTATIONS WITH 
FRANCE 
 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Daniel C. Kurtzer for Reasons 1.4 (B) and (D) 
. 
 
1. (S) SUMMARY: In a readout of their consultations with 
French officials about Iran and other IAEA issues, Gideon 
Frank and Eli Levite of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission 
(IAEC) said the French MFA poldir had told them that the EU-3 
agreement with Iran could not be twisted to justify removal 
of Iran from the IAEA BOG agenda.  Frank was not reassured, 
however, about the sustainability of Iran on the agenda 
because ElBaradei appears deliberately to avoid using the 
strong language of BOG resolutions -- e.g., "further serious 
failures" -- in his reports.  Frank proposed a different 
format for the reports that would curtail ElBaradei's ability 
to express judgments.  Frank and Levite found their French 
counterparts "fixated" on Iran's internal political dynamics, 
rather than on finding ways to block Iran's nuclear program. 
GOF officials said they wanted to move from suspension to 
cessation of Iran's enrichment/reprocessing activities, but 
feared losing Russian support along the way.  While some GOF 
officials thought the President's February 11 fuel cycle 
initiative could be a good tool against Iran, others worried 
about the political viability of another discriminatory 
nonproliferation norm.  Frank thought a discriminatory 
approach was unavoidable, and that opposition could be 
overcome with the right incentives to states renouncing a 
fuel cycle capability.  Frank and Levite noted GOF interest 
in reinserting UNMOVIC into Iraq, and perceived a sincere GOF 
desire for the U.S. to discover WMD in Iraq.  END SUMMARY. 
 
 
2. (S) Israel Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) DG Gideon Frank 
and his deputy, Eli Levite, briefed Ambassador and polmiloff 
March 3 on their discussions about Iran and other IAEA issues 
with French officials in Paris the previous week.  Frank 
interspersed the brief with his own views about how to 
strengthen ElBaradei's reports to the IAEA Board and on 
President Bush's February 11 initiative for controlling the 
ability of states to develop new fuel cycle capabilities. 
 
------------------------ 
Keeping the BOG on Track 
------------------------ 
 
3. (S) Frank said he was worried that the EU-3 would seek to 
remove Iran from the IAEA Board of Governors (BOG) agenda by 
June if ElBaradei does not report "further serious failures" 
by Iran to the BOG.  This concern is compounded by the GOI 
observation that ElBaradei does not use language from BOG 
resolutions, such as "further serious failures," in his 
reports to the BOG.  He said that "Europeans" have speculated 
to the GOI that ElBaradei deliberately eschews resolution 
language in order not to prejudge BOG decisionmaking.  The 
problem with ElBaradei's seemingly "neutral" approach, Frank 
lamented, is that it does in fact prejudge BOG 
decisionmaking, but in the wrong direction.  Many BOG members 
will not vote for a resolution condemning Iran for something 
like "further serious failures" unless ElBaradei's report to 
the BOG uses the exact language. 
 
4. (S) Frank suggested that in order to break out of this 
dilemma, the BOG should instruct ElBaradei to prepare his 
reports in a genuinely neutral format.  IAEC favors one that 
would force ElBaradei to organize his findings under some 
half-dozen rubrics, e.g., "Incomplete Information," "Failure 
to Declare," etc.  ElBaradei would then list findings, such 
as Iran's undeclared P-2 centrifuge designs, under the 
appropriate rubric without comment.  Frank said the IAEC had 
come up with a short list of rubrics under which all 
information from ElBaradei's two most recent reports could 
have been organized.  Frank said some of the French officials 
to whom he pitched the idea liked it, although MFA political 
director de Laboulaye said he preferred having ElBaradei take 
political positions. 
 
5. (S) In response to GOI concerns that Iran would use its 
agreement with the EU-3 to press for removal of its case from 
the BOG agenda, de Laboulaye said, according to Levite, that 
the clear language of the agreement could not be twisted to 
justify such a step.  Levite commented that GOF officials 
appeared uniformly to appreciate the need to maintain 
pressure on Iran.  He said he did not doubt their sincerity, 
given the apparent lack of significant French commercial 
interest in Iran's nuclear industry or general market. 
 
6. (S) Levite expressed frustration, however, with what he 
termed the "fixation" of GOF officials on internal power 
struggles within Iran, to the detriment of serious thought 
about how to maximize leverage against the Iranian nuclear 
program.  Despite the French role in getting Iran to agree to 
suspend enrichment and reprocessing activities, and an 
apparently genuine French desire to delegitimize Iran's fuel 
cycle, GOF officials had apparently not given much thought to 
the precise, practical activities that should be covered by 
the suspension.  The GOF, for example, had expressed no 
objections to Iranian hot cells.  Frank urged the GOF to call 
for Iran to give up its hot cells, especially as French 
companies were interested in meeting Iran's need for medical 
radioisotopes. 
 
-------------------- 
Getting to Cessation 
-------------------- 
 
7. (S) According to Levite, GOF officials said they might 
initiate discussions about moving from suspension to 
cessation of Iranian enrichment/reprocessing within 30 days. 
(Where the GOF would launch the discussions was not clear.) 
Use of the word "cessation" is, however, causing some 
internal GOF trepidation.  The GOF wants to keep Russia in 
synch with its approach, and Russian Deputy FM Kislyak, while 
supporting cessation as a goal, reportedly has said that he 
believes use of the word "cessation" would be premature in 
the near term. 
 
-------------------------------- 
Fuel Cycle Initiative Could Help 
-------------------------------- 
 
8. (S) CEA officials, Levite continued, thought President 
Bush's February 11 proposal for controlling fuel cycle 
activities could prove to be an effective way to lock in 
cessation of Iran's fuel cycle activities.  MFA nuclear 
nonproliferation official Francois Richier and another GOF 
official, however, expressed doubts about the political 
viability of the President's fuel cycle initiative, 
predicting that non-nuclear powers would be reluctant to 
agree to another discriminatory norm.  To achieve the same 
goal of preventing new countries from achieving fuel cycle 
capabilities, they suggested using norms that would 
technically leave the door open to countries developing the 
capability, while setting next-to-impossible requirements, 
such as a strong nonproliferation record, tough economic 
benchmarks, etc. 
 
9. (S) Offering his own view, Frank said he saw no way to 
avoid a discriminatory norm for controlling the proliferation 
of fuel cycle capabilities.  The political viability of the 
President's approach could be strengthened by enhancing the 
incentives available to countries that renounce a fuel cycle 
capability, e.g., the provision of power reactors and/or 
assurances to take back spent fuel.  An incentive of 
potentially great value would be assistance in upgrading 
power grids.  Levite expressed concern that possible U.S. 
interest in pursuing FMCT could undercut the President's fuel 
cycle initiative by legitimizing the construction of new fuel 
cycle facilities. 
 
----------------- 
Restoring UNMOVIC 
----------------- 
 
10. (S) On Iraq, Frank said his French counterparts wanted 
UNMOVIC to take the lead in verifying the state of Iraq's 
nuclear capabilities after the restoration of Iraqi 
sovereignty.  Frank commented that he would be very unhappy 
with a standard safeguards approach in Iraq, given the need 
to address the nuclear knowledge base that already exists 
there.  Levite noted that his GOF contacts very much hoped 
for WMD discoveries in Iraq, and were even critical of what 
they thought were insufficient U.S. efforts to locate Iraqi 
WMD.  In response to the Ambassador's skepticism that such 
views represent broad GOF thinking, Levite insisted on his 
point, noting that the GOF desire to reinsert UNMOVIC would 
be complicated by the absence of WMD discoveries by June.  In 
addition, he noted, the French nonproliferation and 
intelligence communities realize that their credibility is on 
the line because they, too, assessed before OIF that Iraq had 
WMD. 
 
----- 
Libya 
----- 
 
11. (S) Frank said discussions of Libya were limited to the 
implications for dealing with proliferation networks.  The 
two sides agreed that PSI provides a useful approach.  Frank 
said the GOI side emphasized that the networks had not yet 
reached the international or financial dimensions of drug 
trafficking.  Dismantling the networks was thus a feasible 
goal. 
 
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