INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON AFGHANISTAN - UAE

C O N F I D E N T I A L ABU DHABI 000722 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL 03/14/14 TAGS: EAID PGOV PREL AF TC SUBJECT: INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON AFGHANISTAN - UAE THOUGHTS REF: STATE 47946 (U) Classified by Ambassador Marcelle M. Wahba, for reasons 1.5 B and d. ¶1. (C) Ambassador raised reftel demarche on the Afghan donors' conference with MFA Assistant Under Secretary Abdullah Rashid Al-Noaimi on March 10. She also passed him the list of Afghanistan's pressing reconstruction and security needs and urged the UAEG to continue its excellent support for the Afghan government. Al-Noaimi stated that he understood the conference to be a political conference, not/not a pledging conference. He also said that he did not think that the UAEG would be making additional contributions in Berlin, but would be looking at how it could allocate its current pledges. The Ambassador explained that, in the USG's view, the international community needed to act decisively to reinforce the gains made in Afghanistan and demonstrate its commitment. Contributions to Afghanistan should be viewed in the context of global security. She pointed out that the USG was pledging approximately one billion dollars in Berlin to bring our total FY 2004 contribution to $2.2 billion. She also noted favorably previous UAEG "in-kind" contributions to the Afghan armed forces and the UAE's generous humanitarian assistance, and encouraged the UAEG to think creatively about what it could do. ¶2. (C) EconChief also discussed Afghanistan with Ministry of Finance Assistant Under Secretary for Revenue and Budget Khalid Al-Bustani. Al-Bustani discussed Afghanistan's request to have the UAE coordinate a meeting between the Afghan finance minister and his GCC colleagues before the Berlin donors' conference. Al-Bustani said that Minister of State for Finance and Industry Dr. Khirbash believed that it would be more appropriate to coordinate this type of multilateral event through the GCC Secretariat. However, Al-Bustani explained that Dr. Khirbash had written a letter to the GCC Secretariat explaining Afghanistan's request and supporting the idea. Wahba