US embassy cable - 04BRUSSELS2456

C O N F I D E N T I A L BRUSSELS 002456 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/08/2014 
TAGS: PHUM, IR, EUN, USEU BRUSSELS 
SUBJECT: (C) EU/IRAN HUMAN RIGHTS DIALOGUE: LOW EXPECTATIONS 
 
Classified By: USEU/POL: Harry O'Hara, reasons 1.4 b/d 
 
1. (C) Summary: A key EU official involved in the ongoing 
EU/Iran human rights dialogue believes that the next round of 
that dialogue (June 14-15 in Teheran) will accomplish little. 
End summary 
 
2.(C) The EU Council official responsible for organizing the 
next round of EU/Iran human rights dialogue (June 14-15 in 
Teheran) told us that while she thinks that it is important 
that the EU hear what the new Iranian government has to say, 
she does not expect much to happen next week. During the 
first day of the closed session government-to-government 
talks, the EU will raise 30 plus specific human rights 
violation cases with the Iranians as well as press for 
information on a number of Iranian Jews who have been missing 
since the 90's. She told us that the Iranians have also asked 
for a  discussion of torture and she wondered whether they 
want to talk about Iran or rather debate current events in 
Iraq.  She noted that while the EU does not know the new 
Iranian Parliamentarians that will be present at the talks, 
they do know the Iranian judiciary's reps: they are "bad 
news." 
 
3. (SBU) On a more positive note for the EU, they believe 
that the public roundtable sessions on June 15, where 
academics and Iranian human rights organizations (including 
the Islamic Human Rights Commission) will participate, will 
be better. These sessions will consider "Administration of 
Justice" (the EU topic) and "Enhancing Solidarity in the 
field of Human Rights (the Iranian topic). During these 
discussions, the EU team will try to focus on the need for 
Iran to comply with international human rights norms. Our EU 
interlocutor told us that the EU had insisted that they be 
allowed to bring an human rights NGO to participate and a 
Farsi-speaking rep from Amnesty International will be at the 
second day of meetings. 
 
4. (C) Particularly galling to our EU interlocutor is that 
Iranian government seems to believe that they are doing the 
EU a favor by having this round of the dialogue as a 
"response" or "payback" for no Iran human rights resolution 
at the recent CHR. In the Council's preliminary discussions 
with the forthcoming Dutch EU Presidency, the Dutch human 
rights experts made no secret of their distaste for moving 
"rapidly" on a next round of the human rights dialogue with 
Iran. 
 
Comment: 
 
5. (C) Even though EU expectations are low, they are not 
ready to throw in the towel. From our optic, one reason for 
this is that EU human rights experts do not want to give up 
on the key tracks in the overall EU/Iran political dialogue 
(human rights) as current EU policy is no EU trade and 
cooperation agreement with Iran unless all four of the EU's 
political conditions are met (non-proliferation, human 
rights, end to support of international terrorism, and 
support for peace in the mid-east). We also believe that this 
reflects an EU predisposition to want to believe that 
"dialogue" -- any dialogue and even a difficult and 
frustrating dialogue -- is better than "no dialogue." 
Schnabel