Cablegate: Demarche Request: Summit of the Americas
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UNCLAS OTTAWA 002617
SIPDIS
SENSITIVE
E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KSUM ECON PGOV CA
SUBJECT: DEMARCHE REQUEST: SUMMIT OF THE AMERICAS
DECLARATION AND PLAN OF ACTION
REF: SECSTATE 158875
1. (SBU) Poloff delivered reftel demarche to Sarah
Fountain-Smith, Director of the Brazil, Southern Cone, and
Summit Coordination Office at Foreign Affairs Canada.
Fountain-Smith said that Canada takes the summit process very
seriously and Peter Boehm, Assistant Deputy Minister for
Latin America and the PM's Summit Coordinator will lead the
Canadian delegation to Buenos Aires. Canada shares our
concern with the pace of negotiations on the declaration but
is not prepared to follow our recommendation to look for an
alternative to the Declaration. The GOC concern is that in
doing so we would simply transfer the problems we are
encountering now to the alternate process, and could in the
end actually have a worse outcome.
2. (SBU) The GOC, Fountain-Smith says, sees the declaration
as the framework for the plan of action, and is concerned
that shifting the focus away from it would leave any plan of
action without the firm political support it needs to be
successful. She also sees many positive items in the
declaration, e.g. on indigenous rights, that could drop out
altogether if an alternate path was pursued. Fountain-Smith
believes that while the negotiations are slow, there is still
time to accelerate the process next week, hopefully through
the formation of working groups of some sort, to finally
achieve the right outcome. She thought that anything that
breaks the gathering out of plenary and into more functional
groups, would be beneficial and Canada will push this with
the Argentines. She did concede that if it were clear that
things were not going to work we would have to talk again.
Fountain-Smith also mentioned that there was cautious
optimism that there could be positive language on the FTAA,
with the right tone on the IFIs.
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WILKINS