US embassy cable - 05PARIS675

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 PARIS 000675 
 
SIPDIS 
 
FOR NP/CBM 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10 YEARS 
TAGS: ETTC, FR, KS, KSCA, MNUC, PARM, PREL, TSPA, MTCRE 
SUBJECT: MISSILE TECHNOLOGY CONTROL REGIME: 19 JANUARY 
MEETING OF MTCR POINTS OF CONTACT IN PARIS 
 
Classified By: EST Counselor Robert W. Dry for Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). 
 
1. (C)  SUMMARY:  During a 19 January 2005 meeting of the 
Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) Points of Contacts 
(POCS) at the residence of the Norwegian Ambassador to 
France, members were provided with updates and had 
constructive discussions of a wide-range of MTCR issues. 
These included a report of the Republic of Korea  (ROK) MTCR 
chair Oh Joon's outreach activities and his outreach agenda 
in the coming months, planning for the 5-6 April 2005 meeting 
of the Reinforced Points of Contact (RPOC), discussion 
regarding the efficacy of holding a Technical Experts Meeting 
(TEM) prior to the RPOC, final stage preparations for the 
test implementation of the Electronic Points of Contact 
(EPOC) system, plans for French POC's trend analysis of 
denials and catch-all notifications, and early stage 
discussions on the September 2005 MTCR Plenary meeting, 
tentatively slated for Madrid, Spain.  In terms of U.S. 
government objectives for the meeting, the results were in 
line with our position regarding an intersessional TEM, our 
desire to have a substantive agenda for the April RPOC 
meeting, and a deferment of further discussions on 
contentious membership issues.  END SUMMARY. 
 
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OUTREACH BY THE KOREAN MTCR CHAIR 
--------------------------------- 
 
2. (C)  Following an introductory statement by French Point 
of Contact and MTCR coordinator David Bertolotti, the ROK's 
Deputy Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Division 
of Disarmament and Nuclear Energy (in from Seoul in order to 
brief the partners during the POC meeting), Yeo Sung 
presented the MTCR representatives present with an update on 
the outreach activities of the ROK Chair since the Seoul 
Plenary. Yeo began by highlighting a report he circulated to 
the partners regarding Chair Oh's visit to Hong Kong and 
Macao, China in December 2004.  Yeo made only general remarks 
about the Chair's findings from his visits to Hong Kong and 
Macao, commenting that Hong Kong had a well-established 
export control structure, while Macao's system was found to 
be much less effective.  Yeo added that Macao was in need of 
significant assistance from the MTCR in order to improve its 
current export control structure.  At this point, the 
Japanese MTCR representative took the floor, noting that both 
Hong Kong and Macao served as staging points for 
front-company activities in support of North Korea's illicit 
missile programs.  He then suggested that Hong Kong and Macao 
could serve as test cases for broader MTCR engagement with 
China.  Yeo agreed with the Japanese representative's 
recommendation. 
 
3. (C)  Yeo informed partners that Chair Oh's planned visit 
to Malaysia had been postponed as a result of the Malaysian 
MFA's inability to organize the visit within the proposed 
time-frame.  Oh's efforts at arranging a visit to the United 
Arab Emirates (UAE) had also been delayed following a request 
from the UAE government for more information on the MTCR's 
activities prior to any visit.  In addition to plans to 
follow through with future visits to Malaysia and UAE, Chair 
Oh plans to visit Israel and Singapore in early March. 
Following the April RPOC meeting, Oh hopes to make a trip to 
South Asia for meetings in India and Pakistan.  If the ROK 
chair is unable to secure an agreement from the Indian and 
Pakistani governments for an MTCR-related visit, he will look 
for alternative countries to visit.  Yeo also noted the 
Chair's intention to travel to Libya in June 2005, and the 
partners agreed to discuss MTCR outreach efforts toward Libya 
during the April RPOC.  The Italian representative made a 
brief intervention, expressing his country's desire to be 
closely involved with outreach efforts to Libya, for "obvious 
reasons." 
 
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PLANNING FOR THE APRIL RPOC IN PARIS 
------------------------------------ 
4. (C)  Following Yeo's report, Bertolotti provided MTCR 
partners with a text of the proposed agenda for the RPOC 
meeting on 5-6 April in Paris. In addition to circulating a 
draft agenda for the RPOC, the French POC encouraged members 
to submit their documents for the Information Exchange (IE) 
well in advance of the RPOC meeting.  Bertolotti also 
requested that partners prepare and then provide the full 
list of their delegations coming from their respective 
capitals for the meeting as soon as possible, noting that for 
the last RPOC several partners had submitted the names of 
their delegations at the eleventh-hour, making coordination 
and preparations the meeting difficult.  Bertolotti also 
commented that the final dates for the 2005 MTCR Plenary 
would be discussed at the RPOC.  He said, however, that 
tentative plans were for the Plenary to be held in Madrid, 
beginning on 12 September. 
 
 
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DECISION NOT TO HOLD AN INTERSESSIONAL TEM 
------------------------------------------ 
 
 
5. (C)  One of the primary issues discussed during the POC 
was whether to convene an intersessional TEM meeting prior to 
the April RPOC.  Before opening the discussion to members, 
Bertolotti made a statement on behalf of the TEM Chairman 
(not present at the meeting).  The recommendation of the TEM 
Chair was not to hold an intersessional TEM, arguing that 
there had been insufficient notice to the MTCR members, and 
that no IE papers had been disseminated to partners in 
advance of such a meeting.  The TEM Chair also passed on his 
preference for the issues to be resolved via paper process. 
This triggered a short debate, in which members, including 
the U.S. Embassy EST officer and representatives from 
Austria, Australia, and Canada, made clear statements in 
opposition to holding an intersessional TEM for essentially 
the same reasons cited by the Chair's in his in absentia 
statement.  The German representative, however, voiced his 
government's willingness to host an intersessional TEM either 
before or after the RPOC meeting.  Partners agreed, however, 
not to hold an intersessional TEM prior to the RPOC, and to 
resolve outstanding questions via a paper process outside of 
the TEM formal structure.  Bertolotti highlighted the fact 
that issues 9A3 and 19A3 still needed to be resolved, and 
that two unnamed MTCR partner governments had been sent email 
notification requesting that these outstanding issues be 
addressed and resolved as soon as possible.  The members did 
agree to have further discussions regarding the possibility 
of holding a TEM prior to the Madrid Plenary. 
 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
FRENCH POC'S PLANS FOR PROVIDING TREND ANALYSIS 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
 
6. (C)  Bertolotti also gave members an informative briefing 
on the previously agreed upon plans for the French POC to 
expand its role.  Bertolotti informed partners that the 
initial project he would undertake as French POC would be 
trend analysis of denials and catch-all notification from 
1995 to 2005.  The French POC planned to focus the trend 
analysis on a few critical technologies with numerous denial 
notifications.  Bertolotti noted that he would closely 
coordinate this project with Germany and the United Kingdom. 
Bertolotti also planned to compile a "pilot" list of 
end-users of concern.  Bertolotti stressed that it would be 
only be a "pilot" list because of differing views among MTCR 
members as to what constituted an end-user of concern.  The 
pilot list will be compiled starting from 2000 to the 
present.  Bertolotti stressed that he would not be trying to 
"reinvent the wheel," but rather the list would be based on 
information culled from existing materials.  He planned to 
use three main sources of information, namely denial 
notification lists, IEM documents, and papers distributed by 
MTCR partners to the POCS, as well as documents from the 
Australia Group.  Bertolotti expressed his intention to have 
some preliminary results from these projects prior to the 
RPOC, and planned to present the results during the meeting. 
 
-------------------------- 
UPDATE ON THE EPOC SYSTEM 
-------------------------- 
 
7. (C)  A final issue raised by Bertolotti was the impending 
test-phase implementation of a classified EPOC system for 
MTCR partners.  He informed partners that final-stage testing 
by MFA communications experts would be completed by late 
January 2005, with the official test-phase to start in early 
March 2005.  Canada, Sweden, and Australia had agreed to 
participate in the test runs of the system.  The initial 
distribution list would include up to forty users, including 
selected desk officers from the capitals of participating 
partners.  Results from the system's test-phase would be 
presented by the pilot group of partners at the April RPOC. 
The three primary functions of the EPOC will be to provide 
updates to partner POCS of MTCR outreach and TEM activities, 
to serve as a database of POC documents starting from late 
2004 (with plans to eventually include archival data 
stretching back several years), and to provide a secure forum 
to facilitate the exchange of information and discussion 
among the TEM and other experts.  Bertolotti noted that much 
of the communications among experts was at present being 
conducted via non-secure email exchanges.  Bertolotti hoped 
that the full EPOC system would be ready to put in place by 
the September 2005 MTCR Plenary. 
 
8.  (U)  Minimize considered. 
Leach