US embassy cable - 02KUWAIT5262

C O N F I D E N T I A L KUWAIT 005262 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR D, NEA/FO, NEA/ARP, NEA/NGA, IO/UNP 
GENEVA FOR STONECIPHER 
LONDON FOR GOLDRICH 
PARIS FOR OFRIEL 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/04/2012 
TAGS: PREL, KPOW, IZ, KU, ICRC 
SUBJECT: (C) GULF WAR MISSING:  IRAQ FORMALLY ACCEPTS TPC 
PROPOSAL 
 
REF: A) KUWAIT 5236 AND PREVIOUS B) USUN 2969 
 
Classified By: (U) AMBASSADOR RICHARD H. JONES; REASON 1.5 (B, D) 
 
1.  (C) ICRC sent us a copy December 4 of a Note Verbale that 
its office in Baghdad had received the same day from the 
Iraqi Foreign Ministry, accepting the Tripartite Commission 
(TPC) proposal to suspend the TSC quorum rule for four 
months.  (ICRC's informal translation from Arabic follows at 
paragraph 2.)  ICRC Regional Delegate told PolChief that his 
headquarters will move swiftly to convene an extraordinary 
session of the full TPC in Geneva, whose sole agenda item 
will be the formal approval of the proposal.  Meyer expected 
this meeting would take place within "one or two weeks." 
 
2.  (C) Meanwhile, the Deputy Chairman of Kuwait's National 
Committee for Missing and POW Affairs (NCMPA), Dr. Ibrahim 
Shaheen, told the Ambassador that Kuwait would insist on 
playing the Geneva meeting by the book:  the Iraqis could 
choose to be represented by whomever they pleased, but the 
Kuwaitis would send their usual TPC delegation, and counted 
on the other members' ambassadors who normally attend from 
Kuwait to be there as well. 
 
3.  (C) ICRC's informal translation of the Iraqi note from 
the original Arabic is as follows: 
 
BEGIN TEXT: 
 
No. 7/6/1/4/68181 
Date: 22/Ramadan/1423 
27.11.2002 
 
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Iraq 
presents its compliments to the Delegation of the 
International Committee of the Red Cross in Baghdad. 
Reference is made to the Delegation's Note NO. BAG 02/2686 of 
31.10.2002 and to the meeting of 26.11.2002 between Head of 
the Legal Department in this Ministry and Mr Marcus Dolder, 
Head of Delegation.  The Ministry has the honour to inform it 
that the Iraqi Government has agreed on the proposal 
subject-matter of the above-mentioned Note concerning the 
suspension of the Rule on Legal Quorum of the Technical 
Subcommittee (Rule No.8).  The Ministry would like to 
emphasise, with a benefiting aim, that it is specially 
important to extend the suspension period for more than four 
months.  The Ministry would also like to express its hope 
that the ICRC would undertake every possible effort to extend 
the above-mentioned period of time with a view to achieving 
further progress in the process of tracing the fate of Iraqi 
and Kuwaiti missing persons. 
 
The Ministry avails itself of this opportunity to convey to 
the Delegation of the International Committee of the Red 
Cross its utmost appreciation and respect. 
END TEXT. 
 
4.  (C) COMMENT:  This Iraqi action, foreshadowed ref A, is 
not quite what ref B reports that UN High-Level 
Representative Vorontsov intends to put in his upcoming 
report.  Ref B paragraph 3, fourth tick quotes the Vorontsov 
report as mentioning "Iraq's decision to participate in the 
Technical Sub-Committee of the Tripartite Commission, even if 
U.S. and UK representatives were present."  In fact, what 
Iraq has accepted, implicitly, is to participate in some 
manner in a meeting of the full TPC, and then in TSC meetings 
with only two other TPC members (almost certainly Kuwait and 
Saudi Arabia). 
RJONES