SESAME COUNCIL Interim Council Meeting

6th Meeting of the Interim Council
Amman, Jordan, 27-28 August 2001

Opening of 6th IC Meeting was conducted under the patronage of His Royal Highness, HRH Prince Ghazi Bin Mohammed. Minister of Higher Education and Research, His Excellency, Dr. Khaled Toukan made the opening remarks. Professor Schopper (IC chairman) in his opening remark gave an overview of the progress of the SESAME project. This part of the meeting was open to public and was attended by several representatives of countries interested in the SESAME project (e.g. Sudan, Yemen).

The business meeting of the IC started at 11h in the Radisson Hotel, Amman.

1. Professor Herwig Schopper, President of the Interim Council (IC), chaired the Meeting. The Secretary of the SESAME Council sent his apologies due to other commitments. Mr. Robert Parua (UNESCO Office Amman) acted as interim Secretary.

2. Delegations representing the following IC Members participated in the meeting: Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Israel, Jordan, Palestinian Authority, Oman and Turkey. The delegates from Iran, Morocco and Armenia were unable to attend and had notified the IC. Observers present were Germany, Sweden, USA, UK, while those absent were Italy and Russian Federation. Japanese Embassy delegate only attended the official opening. Representatives of France and Kuwait had been invited to attend the meeting in view of a forthcoming decision by IC. Pakistan had also been invited, but due to last minute notification was unable to attend. Other participants included the co-chairs of the Technical, Scientific, Training and Financial Committees. The composition of the IC at the 6th Meeting is attached, as is a list of names and addresses of participants.

3. The IC adopted the Draft Agenda of the 6th Meeting which was slightly changed on the proposal of the chairman. The approved Agenda is attached.

4. The IC approved the Summary Report of the 5th SESAME Interim Council held in Cairo (12-13th March 2001). The IC representative from Egypt, Professor Roushdy, made the following amendment to item 19 of the Summary: “Egypt’s annual membership contribution of US$50,000 for SESAME would be included in the national plan according to an agreement.”

5. The IC then turned to the “Admission of New Members and Observers of SESAME”. The IC members approved unanimously the admittance of Pakistan and Kuwait as Observers to the SESAME Interim Council. The UK had already earlier requested to become an Observer. The French representative, Mrs. Farnaud-Defromont (French Embassy in Amman) announced that France intends to join as an Observer. Both, UK and France were accepted unanimously as Observers. The representative of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed the Agency to participate as an Observer which was agreed also unanimously. Professor Schopper expressed his gratitude and deep appreciation for the admittance of the new Observers, welcomed the representatives concerned and expressed his wish of an efficient and harmonious collaboration.

The concerned governments will be informed officially by UNESCO about their acceptance as Observers to SESAME.

6. The chairman gave an overview of the progress of the SESAME project-
Following the decision by the committee composed of the chairman, the two vice-chairman and Prof.Voss (chairman of the selection committee), which had been asked at the last IC meeting to select the final candidate for the post of Technical Director, negotiations were started with Prof.Dieter Einfeld who had been responsible for the construction of the synchrotron radiation source ANKA at Karlsruhe. These negotiations could, after clarification of a number of details, be brought to a successful end and thus an extremely competent expert could be engaged which gives the assurance that the construction and upgrading of BESSY I will be done in the most efficient and competent way. Mr.Einfeld will formally start its employment as UNESCO consultant on 1 September 2001 for one year and after the establishment of SESAME as an autonomous center he will have to be employed as regular staff. Thanks to an agreement with the Research Centre of Karlsruhe he was able to get already actively involved in the planning since several months. The chairman welcomed Prof.Einfeld warmly to this meeting and wished him full success for the interesting but also demanding challenge.

7. The IC then turned to the report of the SESAME Technical Review Committee on the accelerator building (already distributed) and the oral report by the Technical Director. Mr.Einfeld had proposed not to chose a round building as it was used for BESSY I but rather copy more or less the ANKA building at Karlsruhe which is square. This has the advantages that most of the ANKA drawings can be used, which would accelerate the planning phase. A square building corresponds also more to the tradition at Al-Balqa Applied University and seems to be cheaper than a round building. In addition the cost of the ANKA building is known and hence the uncertainty in the cost estimates for the SESAME hall can be considerably reduced. The ANKA building has a considerable number of offices and laboratories in annexes which would be included in the SESAME building. Based on these facts the Jordanian government committed itself to finance such an accelerator building.
The question which remained concerns the overall size of the building in view of future up-gradings and the needs of the users. To clarify these questions a Technical Review was held at Amman on 10 July 2001 with SR experts and users. The outcome of this review (see report) was that the dimensions of the buildings are sufficiently large for the accelerator. ANKA has an energy of 2.3 GeV and hence the hall would be compatible with any possible increases in energy of SESAME. As to the lengths of beam lines it was observed that there is sufficient room for most beam lines and by making of few minor changes to the building also relatively long beam lines can be accommodated. The Chairman thanked Dr. Einfeld and Engineer Rafiq Sharaf for the work which had been done in a short time and appreciated the decision of Minister Toukan and the Government of Jordan to fund this building.
The IC approved the proposed lay - out of the accelerator hall as the basis for the future planning. The design of the building shall be finalized before the Ground Breaking Ceremony in December 2001.

8. One of the remaining tasks is to find the funds for the installation and up-grading of the machine. The chairman highlighted the critical need to mobilize the financial resources to shift from the planning to the implementation phase of the SESAME project. For this purpose contacts with potential sponsors such as EU, IAEA have been initiated.

The Chairman tabled copies of the letters sent to the Commissioners Patten and Nielsen of European Union. He was informed that a response by Commissioner Patten is under preparation. (Note added at editing: after the IC meeting detailed discussions about possible contributions to SESAME by EU were held with the EU representative in Amman).

The IAEA representative clarified the procedures of how the Member States could benefit under the programme Technical Corporation (see attached statement by Dr. Fazinic). The IAEA is prepared to continue to contribute to the training programme. If additional resources are requested this would need a demonstration of needs of IAEA Member States. This possibility was also confirmed in a communication to the chairman by IAEA DPG, W.Burkart.

Considering the possibility to obtain funds from IAEA it is foreseen that Jordan and other members of IAEA will make a request at the General Conference of IAEA in September 2001. All IC delegates of countries which are members of IAEA are requested to get in contact with their representatives at IAEA with the aim to obtain support for the Jordanian motion.

Discussions are still being pursued with other potential donors such as USAID, USA and other bilateral and multilateral donors.

9. The chairman reminded the delegates that contributions in-kind are also necessary to implement the project. This is also important in order to convince sponsors that the SESAME Members are really involved in the project. Iran has informally confirmed to make in-kind contribution towards the establishment of the SESAME project. In preliminary discussions with the Technical Director certain items could be identified which could be built in Iran. Such contributions in-kind have not only the advantage that the funds can be spent in the own country but in this way activities are initiated in home laboratories or universities which can even lead to transfer of technologies.

During the discussion other countries expressed their willingness to look into the possibility to provide certain components of SESAME. To facilitate this process the Technical Director agreed to provide a list of components which could be built in home laboratories.

10. The chairman stated that it becomes urgent for SESAME to receive a legal Status. Without such a status it is not possible to receive regular contributions from Members or funds from sponsors, no staff can be employed by SESAME, nor can it become the formal owner of BESSY I. After consultations with the UNESCO DG and his staff a Draft Agreement was worked out by the chairman using essential elements of the Statutes which had been discussed previously by the IC. He forwarded had this draft to the IC Members and after having obtained some suggestions for changes he submitted it to the Director General asking that it be submitted to the 162nd Executive Board of UNESCO for endorsement and subsequent approval by the General Conference of UNESCO. The letter to the DG with the final version of the Draft Agreement had been distributed to the IC (Annexed to this document).
In the following discussion the IC supported this procedure and passed the Resolution 1 attached to this document. The chairman insisted that it was extremely important to notify the members of the Executive Board and the General Conference about this issue to request their support in the meetings. To assure this, the Resolution 2 (also annexed) was passed asking that the delegates report back to the chairman until 15.September 2001 that this information took place.

Although a general discussion of the Agreement was not foreseen at this date Mr.Iacovou (Cyprus) asked for an important clarification. In the Draft Agreement in Article X, Contributions, (i) it is stated: "The SESAME Members shall contribute a yearly sum to the budget of the Center which will be decided by the Council by simple majority." The proper interpretation of this sentence is that the Council will decide on the overall level of budget, but not on the individual contributions. These will be determined by a 'formula' to be worked out (cp. point 13). This issue will be clarified when the final Agreement is established with the services of UNESCO.

11. Prof Winick, Co-Chair, reported on the work of the Scientific Committee. The Committee had been very active. A comprehensive report was tabled. It had organised several Meetings/Workshops and the forthcoming workshop will be on Bioinformatics and structural Modelling to be held at Sabanci University in Istanbul, Turkey and several other workshops are planned for next year. A Cooperative Research Programme between Scientists and Engineers from Middle East Countries and US Synchrotron Radiation Laboratories has been launched and 7 fellowships have been granted thus far. A report by the Middle-East Scientists who benefited in the Training Programme was tabled. Most the Scientific Committee’s Training workshops are also entered in the SESAME web site: WWW.SESAME.ORG.JO.

12. The SESAME project is moving from its phase of planning to the phase of implementation. Because of this transition, the Chairman raised the question whether the role and composition of Advisory Committees should not be reviewed. In particular, he pointed out that the future IC Chairman should preferably come from the region. Most IC delegates spoke in favor of reorganizing the Advisory Committees. After a lengthy discussion the IC agreed to establish a task force to make recommendations to the next IC meeting on the restructuring and composition of the committees. The IC appointed Prof. Al Gazzar, Prof. Hasnain (Chairman), Prof. Isa Khubeis, Prof. Winick and Prof. Said Assaf as members of this Task Force.

During the discussion, Prof. Salman brought up one particular item concerning the organization and announcement of workshops. The IC agreed to review the criteria for organizing UNESCO/SESAME sponsored workshops and to select participants in the workshops. A sub-group of the IC was asked to draft recommendations during breaks of the meeting and later the recommendations attached to this document were approved by the IC. (see attachment)

The IC then turned to the SESAME Budget. The IC Chairman reiterated the critical need to ensure that all membership dues must be paid if SESAME is seriously supposed to be implemented. The Chairman confirmed payments made by Greece (he appreciated the advance payments which help considerably as far as the cash flow is concerned), Oman, Turkey and USA (DOE). Jordan provided funds for the planning in various ways and in-kind contributions as well. The chairman made another urgent appeal and strongly urged ALL the IC Members (and voluntary contributions by Observers) to pay their Membership fees in cash or if this is difficult at least in-kind.
A copy of Summary of Budget was tabled including UNESCO Contributions towards the project. The available funds are mainly committed for the salary of the Technical Director. The needs coming up soon concern the storage of Bessy I in Germany (present contract expires at the end of September 2001) and the Transportation of the Bessy I components to Jordan. The contributions of the Members are not only necessary to cover these and other expenses, but are also taken by sponsors as a sign of the involvement of the Members. A budget document has to be prepared for the year 2002. Mr.Khubeis in cooperation with UNESCO will draft such a document for the next meeting of the IC.
The chairman mentioned that soon after the establishment of SESAME as independent laboratory the procedures for the determination of contributions will have to be determined. Since this is a very delicate and complex issue he proposed that immediately a Task Force should be established to look into this problem. The IC agreed and a Task Force to study the question of "Allocation of Contributions" was established with Mrs. A.Patroni as chairperson and the following members: P.Pouros (Cyprus), I.Khubeis (Jordan), D.Ulku (Turkey), S.Al-Alawi (Oman), S.Salman (Palestine).

14. It was agreed that a new Brochure of the SESAME project should be prepared as soon as possible, to be finalized after the formal establishment of SESAME by the UNESCO authorities. Prof. Khubeis agreed to prepare a draft and circulate it to all the SESAME delegates.

15. The 7th meeting of the Interim Council is planned to be held in Amman in the period 17 - 19 December 2001 with the Ground Breaking Ceremony of the SESAME Accelerator building just before or after the IC meeting.

16. The Chairman had been informed that Dr.S.Raither will retire on 1 September 2001 from UNESCO and hence he cannot continue as Secretary of the IC. This was noted by the IC delegates with great regret and the chairman was asked to express to Dr.Raither the warm gratitude of the IC for the impressive work he had done for the project, not only as Secretary of the IC but also as Director of Mathematics and Physics Division in UNESCO. Without his efforts the project would certainly not have reached the state in which it is now.

The Interim Council of SESAME project held its 6th meeting on 27-28 August 2001, Amman, Jordan. Professor Herwig Schopper, President of the Interim Council, chaired the meeting. Delegates representing Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Israel, Jordan, Oman, Turkey and the Palestinian Authority, the Co-Chairs of the Technical, Scientific and UNESCO staff of Amman Office attended it. Observers and invited guests included representatives from the German, French, USA governments and Sweden, the UK and Kuwait, Representatives of the EU and IAEA attended for the first time an IC meeting.

The Interim Council took the following decisions:

1. Approved unanimously the admission of France, Kuwait, Pakistan, EU and IAEA as Observers to the SESAME Interim Council.

2. Adopted Resolution 1 (See attachment) to reaffirm their request to expedite the realization of the SESAME facility in Jordan. To this end the IC confirmed the approved (by mail) draft Agreement to be submitted to UNESCO Executive Board and the General Conference. The IC authorized the Chairman to pursue further with UNESCO to ensure that the decision-making organs of UNESCO approve the Agreement in fall 2001. The IC approved Resolution 2 (see attachment) to formally request all SESAME delegates to inform their representatives in the Executive Board to support the request for the expedition and establishment of SESAME as legal organization. The delegates were requested to report back to the Chairman by 15 September 2001.

3. The IC approved the plan for the accelerator hall (report of Technical Review) as proposed by the Technical Director, Dr.D.Einfeld. The hall offers sufficient space for the various stages of up-gradings foreseen and allows long beam lines.

4. The IC approved the recommendations (see attachment) submitted by an adhoc sub-group established during the Sixth IC meeting to review and streamline the procedures concerning the organization of the UNESCO/SESAME sponsored meetings and workshops.

5. In view of the transition from the preparation of the SESAME project to its implementation, the IC decided to review the tasks and composition of all advisory committees. For this purpose a taskforce chaired by Samar Hasnain (UK) was set-up.

6. The IC delegates took note of the report of activities implemented by the Scientific Committee and thanked the Chairmen for their excellent work. In the future priority should be given to the formation of concrete collaborations for experiments and beam lines.

7. A taskforce to study the procedures for the determination of future contributions by members was set up under the Chair of Mrs. A. Patroni (Greece).

8. The IC members resolved that all members must make an effort to ensure that the annual membership fees are paid. This is not only essential to finance the ongoing activities but is a condition to obtain funds from sponsors. Contributions in-kind for the upgrading of the machine are requested. The Technical Director will provide a list of components which could be built in laboratories of the SESAME members.

9. The 7th meeting of the Interim Council will be held in Amman, in the period 17 to 19 December 2001, the precise date to be fixed. The meeting shall coincide with the Ground Breaking Ceremony of the construction of Accelerator Hall.

RESOLUTION 1 TAKEN AT THE 6TH MEETING OF THE INTERIM COUNCIL

At the 5th Interim Council Meeting held in Cairo (12-13 March 2001), delegates reaffirmed their commitment to expedite the realization of the SESAME facility in Jordan as a prerequisite step in the ratification of an agreed legal status for SESAME under the auspices of UNESCO. This will permit:

the speedy transfer of BESSY I components (already dismantled at the expense of SESAME and UNESCO) from Germany to Jordan.
recruitment of international staff.
attracting and accepting the necessary funding.
Towards this end, after discussions, the optimal route is considered were considered were the following:

a submission of the Draft Agreement to the UNESCO Executive Board (Already accepted as Agenda Item for the meeting in fall 2001)
ensure submission of the Board’s recommendation to the UNESCO General Conference at its next meeting for its final approval.
the Director-General of UNESCO being entrusted to evaluate the details of the feasibility of the proposals and to clarify any remaining legal aspects.
The Interim Council at its 6th meeting in Amman has approved this approach and authorized the Chairman of the IC to submit it to UNESCO Authorities.

RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE TASK FORCE DECIDED AT THE 6TH MEETING OF THE IC IN AMMAN.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

1. ALL announcements in the planned workshops should be on the letterhead of SESAME.

2. ALL invitation letters to individuals and participants should have a standard format using careful statements considering fairness and sensitivities and a copy should be sent to the representative official national committee.

3. ALL scientific activities should be clearly come under the umbrella of SESAME although credit cannot be ignored for those who provide financial or technical support.

4. ALL communications related to SESAME sponsored workshops should be directed towards the official representative national committee or assigned by the Government.

5. Although individuals may apply personally to attend SESAME sponsored workshops, these contacts should be communicated to the official committee in the respective country for coordination.

6. For any workshop the proposal shall be sent to the members of the Scientific Committee of SESAME for final approval and feed back as well as nominations of the scientific committee of the workshop. A local organizing committee for all logistics shall in addition be formed by the host country.

7. Host country to guarantee that workshops are open to SESAME member and observer countries.

APPROVED AGENDA

1. Opening Ceremony (Speeches by HRH Prince Ghazi Ben Mohammed, Prof. Schopper & H.E Prof. Khaled Toukan, Minister of Education.

2. Adoption of the Agenda and Timetable of Work.

3. Approval of the Summary Report of the 5th Cairo Meeting of the Interim Council/(SESAME/IC-01-1)

4. Admission of new Members and Observers of SESAME/ (SESAME/IC-01-3)

Letter of IC-Chairman to French Minister of Research/( SESAME/IC-01-8).

Letter of IC-Chairman to DG/IAEA (SESAME/IC-01-7).

5. Report by the Chairman & Updating on the experimental hall building.

6. Reports by the SESAME Advisory Committees (oral)

7. Contact with potential sponsors (EU, IAEA), letter of IC-Chairman to Commissioners, Patten and Nielsen/SESAME/IC-01-6).

8. Agreement with UNESCO:

Letter of IC-Chairman to DG Matsuura/( SESAME/IC-01-4).

Draft Agreement/(SESAME/IC-01-5).

9. Financial Matters:
Budget 2000 (document to follow).
Budget 2001 (document to follow).
Budget for upgrading the SESAME Machine for Jordan.
Budget for transportation of the machine in Jordan.
Member States subscription fees and contributions.

10. Future contributions (Task force to be set-up).

11. Report of the SESAME Technical Review Committee Meeting for the Accelerator Building, 10 July 2001, Amman.

12. Restructuring of SESAME Advisory Committees in view of the transition from planning to implementation (oral).

13. AOB