ACCESSION NUMBER:00000
FILE ID:95110702.ECO
DATE:11/07/95
TITLE:07-11-95 KEY ISSUES STILL UNDECIDED ON PROPOSED EXPORT-CONTROL REGIME
TEXT:
(Target countries not identified by post-COCOM group) (670)
By Bruce Odessey
USIA Staff Writer
Washington -- A number of key issues remain unresolved after months of
negotiation on a new multilateral export-control regime, a U.S.
Department of Commerce official says.
The official, Maureen Tucker, said the participants have not yet
decided, for example, on which countries will be identified as the
targets of the controls on exports of armaments and technology they
are negotiating.
Policy adviser Tucker made the remarks at a November 7 conference of
the National Council on International Trade Development.
At issue is a regime coming to be called the New Forum, which would
succeed the Cold War-era Coordinating Committee for Multilateral
Export Controls (COCOM). Since COCOM disbanded in March 1994, the
former members have continued controlling COCOM-proscribed exports
while they negotiate a new regime.
A meeting of high-level officials is scheduled December 18 at The
Hague to try to settle any unresolved issues. Tucker said the new
regime could enter into force some time in early 1996.
Participating in the negotiations are COCOM members (Australia, Japan
and NATO countries except Iceland) plus former COCOM-cooperating
countries Austria, Finland, Ireland, New Zealand, Sweden and
Switzerland, as well as former COCOM target countries Russia, the
Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.
So far the participants have not decided on what countries New Forum
would target although the United States has been pressing to identify
the Middle East as a region as well as four pariah states in
particular: Iran, Iraq, Libya and North Korea.
"We don't have a total agreement yet in the group that the Middle East
and those particular countries should be out and out named in the
beginning of the regime as a target," Tucker said.
She said she expected that the New Forum would not identify any
countries as permanent targets as COCOM identified the Soviet bloc.
"One of the things that the members wanted to design was a mechanism
that would be flexible enough to allow them to initially determine
what the targets would be but then they would not be cast in stone,"
Tucker said. "They wanted something that would allow them to shift
their focus as the need arises."
She said the participants have generally agreed that the New Forum
control list would define items as less sensitive, more sensitive and
most sensitive, with more attention paid to tracking shipments of the
latter two categories.
"We have not yet determined exactly what that's going to be," Tucker
said, concerning the categories' composition. "Those discussions are
still ongoing."
A departure from COCOM for the New Forum would be allowing each
participant to enforce the controls itself without prior approval or
threat of a veto from other regime members for any shipment, a policy
called national discretion.
What the United States is seeking in the new regime, Tucker said, is
national discretion for controlled exports anywhere in the world
except to military end-users in Iran, Iraq, Libya and North Korea and
"a strong presumption of denial" for civil-end users in those four
countries.
"That's still being debated," she said. "Countries are very, very
concerned that they keep the concept of national discretion at the
forefront."
Tucker speculated that the negotiators would settle on a system for
the participants to exchange information on approvals and denials of
exports of more-sensitive and most-sensitive items.
Three existing export-control regimes -- the Missile Technology
Control Regime (MTCR), Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and Australia
Group for biological and chemical weapons -- all have policies
assuring that one participant does not approve a sale that was denied
by another participant.
"At this point of time we do not have a no-undercut provision" in the
New Forum, Tucker said, "but we may see that developing in the next
month or so."
She identified as other countries indicating interest in New Forum
participation as Argentina, Bulgaria, Romania and South Korea.
NNNN
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