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