TURKEY: 2002 END USE MONITORING REPORT

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ANKARA 001097 SIPDIS STATE FOR INL, EUR/SE JUSTICE FOR OIA, AFMLS, AND NDDS TREASURY FOR FINCEN E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ECON PREL SNAR TU SUBJECT: TURKEY: 2002 END USE MONITORING REPORT Summary: -------------- ¶1. Turkey is a major transit route for Southwest Asian heroin moving to European markets. Turkish law enforcement agencies attach a high priority to interdiction, although they face serious resource constraints in keeping up with the technology traffickers use in their operations and communications. Turkish agencies continue to use INL-funded equipment. This equipment and INL-funded training furthers the mission of DEA, which relies on close cooperation with Turkish counterparts but lacks operational assistance funding. INL has not provided assistance to Turkey beyond FY 1999, since the GOT did not accept language regarding human rights in the FY 2000 Letter of Agreement. Remaining INL funds in the amount of $50,000 should be exhausted in 2003. Mission officers conducted several End Use Monitoring (EUM) trips in 2002, to ensure that equipment provided under our annual USD $500,000 (appropriations given until 1999) counter-narcotics program was properly used and maintained. Post successfully worked with Turkish agencies in 2002 to disburse funds from previous years. In 2002, Post procured $825,000 in equipment and training for GOT agencies. Strategic Overview: -------------- ¶2. Turkey, largely as a result of its geographical position, is a major transshipment point for Southwest Asian opiates to European markets. European governments estimate that 75 percent of the heroin coming into Europe either transits Turkey or is handled by Turkish criminal organizations in Central Europe. Turkish law enforcement agencies focus their efforts on stemming this traffic, by stopping it at Turkey,s eastern and western border gates, and by destroying illicit laboratories within Turkey which process smuggled raw materials into heroin. In March 2002, Turkish authorities seized 7,454 kilos of morphine base as a result of a DEA-Turkish Jandarma joint investigation. This was the largest seizure of morphine base ever in Turkey. ¶3. Turkey is one of the two traditional producers of opium authorized by the UN to provide raw material for the international pharmaceutical market. Licit opium is produced by the Turkish Grain Board (TMO),which has taken significant steps since 2000 to improve opium yields in its crop. There is no appreciable cultivation of illicit narcotics in Turkey. ¶4. Given these strategic conditions, bilateral counter-narcotics cooperation plays an important part in our overall relationship with Turkey. Turkey did not sign a new Letter of Agreement (LOI) in 2000 to extend further counter-narcotics assistance, due to language regarding human rights in the draft LOI. Narcor is working to complete disbursement of funds remaining from previous years, and estimates that all INL funding will be exhausted in 2003. ¶5. The Embassy provided $825,000 in anti-narcotics commodity assistance and training to Turkish law enforcement and drug authorities in 2002. Post extended this assistance and related training to: Turkish Grain Board (TMO) - $420,000 for equipment to test poppy seeds in producing new drugs for its licit poppy program; $234,000 for a seed processing/cleaning and packaging machine. Turkish Customs Border Guards - $157,000 for ion scanners; $2,000 for digital cameras. Turkish Jandarma - $1,600 for video cameras; $1,600 for digital cameras; $3,500 for undercover transmitters and communications systems. Turkish National Police (TNP) & Turkish Customs Boarder Guards - $5,100 for the continued English language courses. ANATEM Drug Research and Treatment Center ) located in Istanbul, this center has received INL funds in past years but did not receive any procurements in 2002. EUM Trips: -------------- ¶6. Embassy officials conducted several monitoring trips in ¶2002. Embassy officials conducted one end use monitoring trip to Istanbul, as well as several visits to TNP headquarters. Istanbul -------------- ¶7. Econoff conducted an end-use monitoring trip to Istanbul in August 2002, visiting Nihat Kubus, the Chief of the Technical Unit for the Turkish National Police (TNP) in Istanbul. Kubus provided econoff and accompanying DEA officer a tour of the facilities, including the storage room for equipment. He said all of the U.S.-provided equipment was accounted for, and the Istanbul TNP still used some of this equipment. For example, still in use were radios provided from 1988-2002, telescopic cameras provided in 1989, GPS equipment provided in 2002, actuators provided in 1992, and a fiberscope provided in 1989. Kubus said some of the equipment supplied by INL, such as the bullet proof vests which the U.S. provided in 1990, were no longer usable either because the shelf life had expired or it was no longer technically adequate. ¶8. Kubus said he believed the INL program had been valuable, as it allowed the TNP to purchase high-tech equipment it would not otherwise be able to purchase. However, he complained, he felt that TNP Ankara needed to coordinate more closely with TNP Istanbul before it ordered equipment. Kubus said it would be useful if he had more input into the decision-making process, as his equipment needs were sometimes different than those in Ankara. Ankara -------------- ¶9. Econoff and DEA officer visited Mustafa Gokcimen, Director of the TNP,s Technical Unit in Ankara, on August 14, 2002. Gokcimen and his technical staff provided a demonstration of how the TNP were utilizing the GPS system, which was funded by INL in 2000. Gokcimen said the TNP were making good use of the system, using it to track suspected drug traffickers. The system had now been extended to ten different cities in Turkey, including Istanbul. They were now working on &mapping8 other cities and on some technical modifications to make the GPS system compatible with some of the TNP,s other tracking systems. Impact -------------- ¶10. Though the direct impact is difficult to calculate, Turkish anti-narcotics authorities had several operational successes in 2002: In March, the Turkish Jandarma, working with the DEA Istanbul Resident Office and based on intelligence developed by DEA, seized 7.5 metric tons of morphine base. This seizure led to the arrest of a DEA priority target. DEA and Turkish Counterparts continue to focus on acetic anhydride (AA) which is smuggled into Turkey and used to convert morphine base into heroin in illicit laboratories located in Turkey. In January 2002, the TNP seized 10,000 kilograms of AA in Bursa, Turkey. In April, the TNP seized 2 tons of AA from a TIR truck/trailer in Istanbul. The AA arrived in Samsun, Turkey from the Ukraine. In December, DEA,s Ankara Regional Office, Moscow, Russia Country Office, the TNP and Russian officials successfully conducted an international controlled delivery of 3.5 tons of AA from Russia to Turkey. This investigation led to the identification of the AA source of supply in Russia as well as the arrest of the transporters, brokers, and end users in Turkey. In May, as the result of DEA, TNP and Turkish Customs cooperative efforts, Turkish Customs seized 93.6 kilograms of heroin and arrested a Macedonian national at the Ipsala border crossing on the Turkish/Greek border. The heroin was secreted inside the refrigeration compartment of a truck SIPDIS transporting 17 tons of tomatoes from Turkey. During 2002, several operational captagon laboratories were seized in Turkey. Fenethylline, which is commonly called captagon, is a stimulant traditionally produced in Bulgaria and trafficked through Turkey to countries on the Arabian Peninsula. The first seizure of Turkish-produced captagon occurred in July 2002, when Turkish authorities seized a captagon laboratory and approximately 5-6 million captagon tablets. The Turkish Jandarma seized another two operational captagon laboratories in Istanbul in January 2003. PEARSON