Wikileaks: 23.10.2008 – RUSSIANS PROVIDE EUROPEAN SECURITY PAPER TO EU-3

S E C R E T USNATO 000393
NOFORN
SIPDIS
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/23/2018
TAGS: NATO, PREL, GM, RS
Classified By: CDA W.S. Reid for reasons 1.4 (b), (d).
1. (S/NF) The following document was provided to us unofficially by a staffer in the Private Office of NATO Secretary General de Hoop Scheffer (strictly protect). According to the Private Office, the document was initially provided by the Russians to the EU-3. Germany, in turn, shared it with the Secretary General only. It is not in circulation at NATO formally.

2. (S/NF) Commment: This document is more remarkable for how it has been handled than for its content — which is a rehash of ideas we have seen from the Russians many times before. The Dutch learned of the documents existence and informed the SYG, per Private Office sources. He asked the U.S. to provide it to him after a request to Germany confirmed the documents existence, but also a refusal to share it with him. When we told him we did not have a copy, he doubted our answer and went back to the Germans. At that point the Germans briefed De Hoop Scheffer on the document, but they still refused to give him a copy. They did tell him, however, that three other Allies had it. He took this to mean that it was a Quad document, an impression of which Germany did not disabuse him. When Germany refused to give it to him, he once again asked us for it. When we repeated that we did not have such a paper, he reportedly expressed doubts about our answer, believing that we were deliberately holding out on him. As a result, he went back to the Germans a third time, who finally admitted the true source of the document. They also eventually provided him a copy of the paper, we understand. End Comment

3. (C/NF) The text of the Russian-drafted European Security Paper follows below:

UNOFFICIAL TRANSLATION

Such Treaty should create in the Euro-Atlantic area a reliable collective security system that would provide for equal security of all States, stipulate in a legally binding manner the foundations of the interaction between its Signing Parties – States as well as international organizations – with the goal of strengthening peace, enhancing stability and providing for security in Europe and in the world as a whole. Key thematic elements of such a Treaty:
— Basic principles of relations between States, including adherence to the implementation in good faith of obligations under international law; respect for the sovereignty, territorial integrity, political independence and unity of States; inviolability of frontiers, possibility of their change only in accordance with international law, by peaceful means and by agreement; non-interference into internal affairs.
— Reaffirmation of the principle of inadmissibility of the use of force or threat of use of force in international relations in any manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations.
— Unified approaches in the Euro-Atlantic area to the peaceful settlement of conflicts with the particular emphasis on the priority of negotiated solutions based on the due consideration of the positions of the parties and respect to the existing international negotiating and peacekeeping mechanisms.
— Obligations of all States and international organizations not to maintain their own security at the detriment to the security of others, to observe the principles of equal and indivisible security.
— Reaffirmation that no State or international organization in the Euro-Atlantic area is vested with primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and stability in this region or a right to consider any part of it as an area of their exclusive influence.
— Basic principles of arms control regime in Europe, confidence and security building, restraint and reasonable sufficiency in the military development in the Euro-Atlantic area.
— New quality of cooperation as to counteracting new threats and challenges, such as, for example, WMD proliferation, terrorism, violent separatism, drug trafficking and other kinds of transnational crime.
— Affirmation that all States in the Euro-Atlantic area would not allow, in the framework of any military union, organization or coalition, any actions undermining the unity of the Euro-Atlantic security space and that the evolution of such military unions, organizations or coalitions would be carried out, inter alia, on the basis of respect of security interests of every participating State of this Treaty.
REID

COMMENTS