AFGHANISTAN/TURKISH PRT: MFA/TGS MOVING FORWARD

C O N F I D E N T I A L ANKARA 002465 SIPDIS STATE FOR SA/FO - AMB. TAYLOR; JCS FOR J5 COL SCHRADER E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/03/2029 TAGS: PREL MARR MOPS TU AF SUBJECT: AFGHANISTAN/TURKISH PRT: MFA/TGS MOVING FORWARD WITH TAKHAR REF: ANKARA 2293 (U) Classified by PolMil Counselor Timothy A. Betts. Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (C) MFA DDG for NATO Affairs Fatih Ceylan informed PolMilCouns April 30 that MFA had just sent up for Foreign Minister Gul's approval the proposal to establish a PRT in Takhar. Ceylan, reiterating what his colleague told us a week earlier (reftel),emphasized that Takhar was the unanimous recommendation of the interagency survey team Ankara had dispatched earlier in the month. He was emphatic that Turkey would only consider a PRT in northern Afghanistan, and Takhar was the place. If it was not possible to do it there, Turkey would likely not contribute a PRT to Afghanistan at all. When pushed on this point, Ceylan allowed that if the Alliance offered Turkey Baghlan, it would seriously consider it, but "nowhere else," he declared. ¶2. (C) PolMilCouns recalled that the survey team had received different signals from different entities when it was in Afghanistan, and asked whether the GOT had been consulting SHAPE and the PRT ESC in Kabul as it was formulating its recommendation. Ceylan said Turkey's permrep was instructed to raise the proposal with SACEUR during the NAC's visit to Afghanistan last week, but Ankara had not yet received a report of that conversation. Ceylan acknowledged that the German Defense Ministry asserts that Takhar is already covered by the German PRT in Konduz, but the German Foreign Ministry more candidly admits that the Konduz PRT is effective only within a radius of 40 kilometers of the PRT. Takhar is clearly beyond that area. Ceylan said that MFA approached Gul as Deputy Prime Minister and expected to "make public at NATO" Turkey's PRT offer after Gul approves it. He expected approval over the weekend, with Turkey pushing the proposal forward with both SHAPE and the PRT ESC as early as Monday, May 3. ¶3. (U) Kabul minimize considered EDELMAN