US embassy cable - 05THEHAGUE167

C O N F I D E N T I A L THE HAGUE 000167 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR NP/RA EYTHAN SONTAG, L/NP JULIE HERR, L/LEI 
DENISE MANNING 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/23/2015 
TAGS: KNNP, MNUC, PARM, PREL, KTIA, PHSA, EWWT, NL 
SUBJECT: DUTCH MFA ON U.S. AMENDMENTS TO THE SUA 
 
REF: A. STATE 4828 
     B. DEAN-SONTAG/HERR/MANNING EMAILS 1/21 AND 
        PREVIOUS (NOTAL) 
 
Classified By: CLASSIFIED BY POLITICAL COUNSELOR ANDREW SCHOFER FOR REA 
SONS 1.4 (B AND D) 
 
 1. (C) PolMilOff made ref A demarche to MFA Nonproliferation 
Affairs Chief Paul Wilke and MFA Deputy Director of Juridical 
Affairs Liesbeth Lijnzaad on January 11 and followed up with 
Lijnzaad on January 21.  As reported preliminarily ref B, 
Wilke said that in general, the Netherlands shares U.S. 
concerns and wants to see the SUA Convention used as 
intended, but suggested there are "legal and political" 
complications.  Lijnzaad expressed concern about the time 
available to have a text ready for the October diplomatic 
conference on the SUA.  She thought a compromise was possible 
on the issue of state vs. non-state actors.  However, the 
dual-use issue was "extremely complicated" in terms of 
linking certain control lists like the Australia Group to the 
SUA.  This is because not all states party to the SUA are 
participants in political arrangements like the AG.  Wilke 
noted that even if it is possible to get states not party to 
the AG and other such lists to agree, a mechanism would be 
needed to reflect that the lists are regularly updated or 
else they would be frozen in the form that they are appended 
to the SUA.  Lijnzaad said that another problem was that not 
many large registry countries are currently part of the 
drafting process. 
 
2. (C) Lijnzaad said she would chair the January 17 EU COMAR 
meeting instead of current EU presidency holder Luxembourg as 
Luxembourg was not a maritime state.  In a January 21 
follow-up discussion (also reported preliminarily ref B), 
Lijnzaad told PolMilOff that at the COMAR meeting, EU members 
did not disagree with the substance of U.S. proposals but 
were "quite concerned" at their coming "so late in the 
process."  Lijnzaad said members were worried that if they 
were to reopen the discussion now they could "wind up 
nowhere."  She opined that the effort would be of limited 
utility if it only attracted the support of the PSI partners. 
 She also noted that her fellow COMAR members were guided in 
their views by a certain sympathy for the "incredible" amount 
of work that their French colleague had invested in drafting 
the current language on Footnote 14 addressing the areas the 
U.S. seeks to amend. 
SOBEL