US embassy cable - 04ZAGREB1365

C O N F I D E N T I A L ZAGREB 001365 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/SCE:KABUMOTO, EUR/RPM, AC/CAC:YOUNG 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/26/2014 
TAGS: PARM, MARR, PREL, HR, Defense Reform (Mil & NATO) 
SUBJECT: CROATIA EAGER TO BRAINSTORM NEXT STEPS ON REGIONAL 
ARMS CONTROL 
 
REF: A) 03 ZAGREB 2162 B)ZAGREB 921 C)USOSCE 250 
     D)FRIEDMAN-YOUNG E-MAILS OF 6/16/04 
 
1. (U) This is an action message. Please see paragraph 5. 
 
2. (C) On June 15 we met with Drazen Hrastic, Head of Office 
for Cooperative Security, Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 
advance of the Dayton Article IV Review Conference (REF C). 
The essence of this conversation was passed to Department REF 
D.  Hrastic indicated that while Art. IV implementation on 
measures for sub-regional arms control is ongoing, there is a 
high level of implementation within the region and excellent 
cooperation among the parties.  Hrastic believes it is not 
too soon to start thinking about a time when Art. IV will be 
closed and its provisions subsumed to the CFE Treaty. 
 
2. (C) FUTURE OF REGIONAL ARMS CONTROL: In this context, 
Hrastic sought clarification of the U.S. approach to regional 
arms control.  Specifically, under what framework would 
ongoing arms control and verification procedures be 
conducted?  Hrastic said the GoC would prefer that Art. II 
elements be transferred to IV or possibly Art. V.  However, 
Hrastic said that some countries (unspecified) seemed to 
support further confidence building and verification measures 
be conducted in the OSCE framework.  Hrastic emphasized that 
Croatia would not block consensus, but he was simply seeking 
U.S. views.  The GoC wants to see consensus on three issues 
related to Art. V: 1) its purpose; 2) its content; and 3) 
general agreement between the OSCE and the parties. 
 
3. FUTURE of RACVIAC: Expressing his personal opinion, in the 
context of the U.S. leaving RACVIAC (Refs A and B), Hrastic 
is concerned that the U.S. is backing out of the arms control 
business in the Balkans.  Hrastic complained that not all 
RACVIAC members were proactive in determining what that 
organization should be doing, particularly regarding training 
activities.  In that regard, Hrastic said that there appear 
to be communication problems between the OSCE's Personal 
Representative (designated under the Dayton Agreement) and 
RACVIAC.  The Office of the Personal Representative was not 
providing sufficient feedback on training requests.  Hrastic 
was eager to learn the future U.S. role in RACVIAC to help 
address these concerns and encouraged us to consider 
permanent observer status.  We indicated that the U.S. was 
considering taking this position but we indicated that we 
were unsure how strong a role the U.S. could take in 
addressing organizational issues if we were to take on 
observer status. 
 
4. FUTURE TRAINING: Hrastic said that in his recent 
Washington consultations, he had asked about possible U.S. 
education and training for Dayton parties.  He said that 
there had been some initial discussion of training for 
military NCOs and of training in disaster relief programs. 
He asked what were the U.S. plans in this regard. 
 
5. ACTION REQUEST: Post requests Department instructions for 
answering Hrastic's specific questions on the future of the 
Dayton annex and our role in RAVIAC. 
FRANK 
 
 
NNNN