US embassy cable - 04ROME3999

UNCLAS ROME 003999 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
DEPT FOR EUR/OHI 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL, PHUM, IT, OSCE, EUN 
SUBJECT: ITALY SUPPORTS ESTABLISHING OSCE SPECIAL REP FOR 
ANTI-SEMITISM 
 
 
Guidance request - see para 4 
 
1.  On October 15, MFA OSCE Office Director Fabio Cristiani 
told EUR/OHI Director Don Braum (in Rome for the Holocaust 
Education Task Force) that Italy fully supports US view that 
a special representative for anti-Semitism should be 
established in the OSCE.  EU representatives met at 25 to 
discuss the issue on the margins of the OSCE Human Dimension 
Implementation Meeting on October 12 in Warsaw.  The EU will 
take up the subject again on October 19 at the EU COSCE 
meeting in Brussels. 
 
2.  Italy supports establishing two new representatives, one 
for anti-Semitism and one for all other forms of intolerance. 
 Cristiani was fairly confident that such an approach would 
address concerns of some participating States, especially 
Islamic countries, that anti-Semitism was being given special 
treatment.  Cristiani added that Italy would not support 
establishing any more than two special representatives.  He 
warned that there was a danger of "proliferation" of special 
representatives for every type of intolerance.  Cristiani 
promised to make his views clear at the COSCE. 
 
3. Cristiani questioned the necessity of a third OSCE meeting 
on anti-Semitism, especially if it covered the same ground 
and employed the same format as the Berlin conference.  He 
said that Italy would consider supporting a meeting at a 
working level, or one that covered anti-Semitism one day and 
other forms of intolerance the next. 
 
4. Finally, Cristiani asked at what level the US would be 
represented at the OSCE Ministerial in Sofia in December. 
Poloff promised Cristiani he would check with Washington. 
 
 
SEMBLER 
 
 
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 2004ROME03999 - Classification: UNCLASSIFIED