US embassy cable - 04THEHAGUE2346

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 THE HAGUE 002346 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/16/2014 
TAGS: NL, PREL, EUN 
SUBJECT: SEPT. 13-14 GAERC: READ-OUT FROM DUTCH 
 
REF: A. (A) BRUSSELS 3897 
 
     B. (B) THE HAGUE 2290 
 
Classified By: PolcounsA. Schofer for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). 
 
 1. (C) Summary.  Emboffs discussed Sept. 13-14 GAERC with 
MFA Political Affairs Department Director Jaap Werner on 
September 16.  He said the the EU's foreign ministers had 
discussed Secretary Powell's comments about genocide in 
Darfur, the financing of the UN Protective Force in Iraq, and 
EU relations with Russia.  He also described the problems the 
French had had with the ASEM package agreed at the Gymnich. 
See ref A for public GAERC conclusions.  End summary. 
 
Sudan/Darfur 
------------ 
 
2. (C) Ministers are awaiting developments in New York, 
Werner said, and did not substantively move the ball forward 
with regard to imposing sanctions on Sudan.  Werner opined 
that sanctions were discussed in general terms, but without a 
package of actual proposals on the table.  Ministers 
primarily wanted to "send a message" to Sudan that sanctions 
are a real possibility if the situation does not improve.  In 
addition to the expected discussion on Sudan, the ministers 
felt they needed to react to Secretary Powell's statement 
that events in Darfur constituted genocide.  Ministers wanted 
to acknowledge that statement and called for the UN to 
investigate, Werner said, but would leave it up to the UN to 
determine whether genocide had in fact been committed. 
 
3. (SBU) The FM Bot trip to Khartoum, originally scheduled 
for Sep 9 and canceled when the Sudanese could not guarantee 
appropriate interlocutors, has not been rescheduled.  It is 
possible that he will try to combine it with a trip to the 
African Great Lakes, mentioned as the "open troika" visit in 
the GAERC public conclusions. 
 
Iran 
---- 
 
3. (C) Werner said that the EU-3 were more transparent than 
previously about their discussions with Iran, and garnered 
full EU support for their position that the critical IAEA 
should be November, not September.  He made clear that the 
EU-3 do not believe that their efforts have run their full 
course, and stressed that the EU was prepared to continue to 
let them take the lead on this issue. 
 
Iraq 
---- 
 
4. (C) The Dutch have received member state commitments for 
less than half the 26 million objective, but hope to be able 
to provide a positive EU response to the UN next week.  This 
depends on negotiations now going on between Commission and 
UN officials about the EU supporting the "inner ring" as 
opposed to the "middle ring", thus avoiding the constraints 
on spending of Commission funds for military activities. 
 
5. (C) Some ministers were still very concerned about 
security in establishing an EU presence in Iraq or sending 
election observers.  They do not want to position enough 
people to provide their own security, but they do not want to 
send in people without them being secure.  (Werner 
acknowledged that this is a "catch 22" situation hampering 
progress.) The EU will send another fact-finding mission to 
Iraq shortly to develop further the proposals for EU 
activity.  The proposals will be discussed at the November 
GAERC and hopefully endorsed by the Council. 
 
ASEM 
---- 
 
6. (C) The GAERC officially did no more than endorse the 
package agreed at the Gymnich, but Werner reported there was 
some trouble getting the package from Gymnich to GAERC.  The 
French believed that the language on the EU response to a 
Burmese failure to meet EU demands on human rights was too 
firm, i.e., the trigger for sanctions was too "automatic." 
The French claimed that the lack of the French foreign 
minister at Gymnich gave them the right to revisit the 
"trigger" language later, according to Werner, and had tried 
to weaken this provision at PSC and COREPER last week. 
Werner said the Dutch presidency was not prepared to make any 
changes on this point and had succeeded in getting the 
"trigger" language approved in the GAERC conclusion. 
According to Werner, if the Burmese fail to meet all three 
conditions by October 8, the October 11 GAERC is expected to 
take the steps outlined in the conclusion.  If there is a 
desire to soften the EU position, he added, the burden would 
clearly be on those seeking to change the decision to make 
their case, as the current position is that the EU will act 
unless all three conditions are met.  On the other hand, 
Werner acknowledged that there would probably be some 
sympathy in the EU for responding positively to a partial 
Burmese concession in order to encourage progress. 
7. (C) On another point of concern to the French, the 
financial sanctions language in the conclusion was tightened 
to specify that EU companies could not finance debt or equity 
in Burmese state-owned firms.  This was genuinely a 
"technical change" (ref B) in that the French wanted to 
exclude commercial (trade) financing partly on legal grounds 
(and, Werner said, partly because certain French companies 
had transactions under way that they did not want threatened). 
 
China arms embargo 
------------------ 
 
8. (C) Werner said the embargo was not discussed either 
formally or informally.  He expressed his personal view that 
neither the French nor the Chinese are pushing on this issue 
at this point, though the Chinese had brought it up in 
contacts in Beijing.  He warned that this might be simply 
because Chirac had not focused on the issue recently, 
although he suggested he probably would in preparation for 
his trip to China.  Chirac could also seek to create a "fait 
accompli" during his visit to force the EU and the Dutch 
presidency to respond.  Werner noted that the EU has its 
Human Rights Dialog with China next week, and the October 
GAERC will evaluate the human rights dialog both with China 
and Iran. 
 
Russia 
------ 
 
9. (C) Although not on the published agenda nor in the 
published conclusions, the ministers did discuss EU relations 
with Russia, according to Werner.  The Dutch raised the 
issue, partly in relation to the Russian reaction to Bot's 
comments at the Gymnich about Beslan and partly based on 
discussions at the Gynmich's lunch with candidate states, 
where Moldova and Ukraine received attention.  Apparently at 
both the Gymnich and the GAERC, the new member states were 
vocal about their concerns vis-a-vis Russia.  The new members 
reportedly drew attention to the fact that the EU's "Russia 
strategy" and friendly "neighborhood" policies did not take 
fully into account Russia's own, apparently different agenda 
for its "near abroad."  More and more, they said, Russia 
appears intent on recovering influence in former Soviet 
space.  Werner said that the ministers observed that Russia 
seems to prefer poor, weak and unstable neighbors, and was 
quite successful at playing EU member states off against each 
other.  Werner noted that this general, "philosophical" 
discussion of the EU's Russia strategy would continue, next 
at the political directors meeting in New York, but he 
specifically said he would not yet term it a "review" of the 
EU's strategy. 
SOBEL