US embassy cable - 04KUWAIT1996

C O N F I D E N T I A L KUWAIT 001996 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR T, AC, NEA/ENA, EUR/UBI, EUR/WE, NEA/ARP 
THE HAGUE FOR CWC DEL, ALSO FOR EMBASSY 
TEL AVIV FOR DCM LEBARON 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/28/2014 
TAGS: PARM, PREL, LY, KU, CWC 
SUBJECT: (SBU) DEMARCHE DELIVERED:  CWC TECHNICAL CHANGE TO 
PERMIT CONVERSION OF LIBYAN FACILITY 
 
REF: STATE 136811 
 
Classified By: AMBASSADOR RICHARD JONES; REASON 1.4 (B, D). 
 
1.  (C) A/DCM joined the British, Italian and Libyan DCMs in 
delivering reftel demarche June 28 on MFA Acting Director of 
Legal Affairs Ghanem al-Ghanem.  Ghanem promised to contact 
the Kuwaiti OPCW Executive Council delegation urgently (it 
had just left for The Hague that morning) and to put the 
matter to the Undersecretary for decision the same day.  A 
lawyer from the Legal Dept. who sat in on the meeting 
examined Article XV paragraphs 4 and 5 and offered the 
opinion that the proposed technical change is fully 
consistent with those provisions.  Nonetheless, given 
possible objections from France and Germany, we agree with 
our British and Italian colleagues that it would be useful 
for USDEL to approach the Kuwaiti delegation directly, as 
early as possible. 
 
2.  (C)  The British and Italian instructions were identical 
to ours except that theirs made no mention of including the 
Libyan embassy in the joint demarche (both were perfectly 
happy to take our word for it).  The Libyan embassy here knew 
nothing about the issue, let alone the demarche, but after 
checking with Tripoli, the Libyan DCM (who is primarily the 
embassy's accountant) did participate.  He was concerned that 
we did not have an Arabic text to present to MFA, and still 
did not seem fully to grasp the issue (he appeared to believe 
the "technical change" in question was to the Rabta factory 
rather than to the CWC's Verification Annex).  Nonetheless, 
all parties appreciated that this joint demarche represented 
a historic moment in the diplomatic annals of Kuwait. 
JONES