US embassy cable - 05VIENNA3062

Disclaimer: This site has been first put up 15 years ago. Since then I would probably do a couple things differently, but because I've noticed this site had been linked from news outlets, PhD theses and peer rewieved papers and because I really hate the concept of "digital dark age" I've decided to put it back up. There's no chance it can produce any harm now.

Identifier:	05VIENNA3062
Wikileaks:	View 05VIENNA3062 at Wikileaks.org
Origin:	Embassy Vienna
Created:	2005-09-14 14:19:00
Classification:	UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Tags:	KNNP MNUC PARM PREL EWWT KTIA PHSA AU EUN
Redacted:	This cable was not redacted by Wikileaks.

UNCLAS VIENNA 003062 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
STATE FOR NP/RA, L/LEI, L/NP, EUR/ERA AND EUR/AGS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
 
TAGS: KNNP, MNUC, PARM, PREL, EWWT, KTIA, PHSA, AU, EUN 
SUBJECT: AUSTRIA WILL SUPPORT SUA AMENDMENTS AT DIPLOMATIC 
 
CONFERENCE 
 
REF: STATE 163045 
 
THIS MESSAGE IS SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED. 
 
1.  (SBU) Acting Econ/Pol Couns delivered reftel points to 
 
MFA A/S for Nonproliferation and Arms Control Dorothea Auer 
 
on September 7.  Auer assured us that Austria supports the 
 
goals of the SUA amendments and would weigh in again in favor 
 
of them in MFA's internal discussions. 
 
2.  (SBU) We then carried out the demarche to MFA 
 
DAS-equivalent for International Law Michael Postl on 
 
September 9.  Postl said that Austria considered the April 
 
2005 compromise reached in the SUA Legal Committee reasonable 
 
and appropriate.  Austria was inclined to follow the lead of 
 
the UK EU Presidency in pushing through the compromise 
 
language.  In any case, he observed that, in the interest of 
 
arriving at a resolution, "experience showed it was 
 
inadvisable to try to change very much" at this point. 
 
3.  (SBU) Postl's desk officer Thomas Loidl added that the EU 
 
maritime working group COMAR would take up the matter on 
 
September 23.  Austria would be strongly inclined to follow a 
 
consensus that emerges from that meeting. 
 
4.  (SBU) Tulane University professor Guenther Handl, an 
 
Austrian international law expert(and former MFA official), 
 
will probably again represent Austria at the October 
 
Diplomatic Conference. 
 
Brown