US embassy cable - 04THEHAGUE3338

C O N F I D E N T I A L THE HAGUE 003338 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/22/2014 
TAGS: AORC, PARM, NL, IAEA 
SUBJECT: NETHERLANDS/IAEA: THIRD TERM FOR ELBARADEI REMAINS 
OPEN ISSUE FOR THE DUTCH 
 
REF: SECSTATE 270920 
 
Classified By: Andrew Schofer, Political Counselor, for reasons 1.4 (b) 
 and (d) 
 
1.  (C)  SUMMARY:  Dutch contacts say the EU will likely not 
coordinate on the issue of supporting another term for 
ElBaradei, letting individual EU member states on the BOG 
develop their own positions.  The Dutch have not yet staked 
out a position on the issue, and claim to have little 
information on the preferences of other EU BOG members.  End 
Summary. 
 
2.  (C) PolMiloff met Karel van Kesteren and Giovanni van der 
Lugt (MFA UN Office) and Bas ter Haar (MFA, Security Policy) 
on December 22 to share reftel points;  Poloff followed up 
with van Kesteren on December 23.  Van Kesteren indicated 
that each EU member on the IAEA BOG would be "free to follow 
its own line" as "this is not a matter of EU coordination." 
That said, van Kesteren acknowledged that the EU has a policy 
to "support heads of specialized agencies of the UN for two 
periods only, or alternatively for a period not exceeding 12 
years."  He added that "there were differences on the 
interpretation of this agreement," but the EU in such a case 
would usually follow the "not more than 12 years rule."  In 
this case, however, some in the EU had argued that this 
general EU policy should not apply to the IAEA since, 
technically speaking, it is not a specialized agency of the 
UN.  Furthermore, the EU has made exceptions to the rule 
previously (e.g., with regard to the ILO) and that in other 
instances individual countries have from time to time made 
exceptions on political grounds (e.g. FODAG, where France has 
supported French-speaking candidates.) 
 
3.  (C)  Van Kesteren said he had "almost no information on 
the positions of individual EU countries" and indicated that 
the Dutch had not yet staked out a national position.  As a 
matter of principal, Van Kesteren stressed that he would want 
to uphold the rules lest they become meaningless, but he also 
believed that ElBaradei might be able to achieve more than a 
Western candidate.  He said that the MFA would discuss the 
issue internally and then get back to the USG.  Van Kesteren 
concluded that "support by EU countries for a third term is 
not excluded per se, which does not imply that EU countries 
will necessarily support him."  For his part, ter Haar had a 
"certain inclination" to look favorably on a third term for 
ElBaradei, making clear that this is still an open issue for 
the Dutch. 
SOBEL