COMPREHENSIVE CONVENTION ON INTERNATIONAL

C O N F I D E N T I A L ANKARA 003301 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/10/2015 TAGS: PREL PTER TU UNGA SUBJECT: COMPREHENSIVE CONVENTION ON INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM (CCIT): TURKEY'S VIEW REF: STATE 105937 (U) Classified by Polcounselor John Kunstadter; reasons: E.O. 12958 1.4 (b,d). ¶1. (U) Action request--see para 8. ¶2. (C) Summary: Turkey fully supports U.S. efforts to conclude CCIT convention at the 60th UNGA, acknowledges resistance exists among some OIC member states on points which are red lines for both the U.S. and Turkey, and asks for clarification of the U.S. stance on language concerning the definition of terrorism. End summary. ¶3. (C) In response to our June 10 presentation of reftel demarche, MFA DDG for Counterterrorism Bicakli and First Secretary Oral expressed Turkey's unequivocal support for SIPDIS trying to conclude the CCIT at the 60th UNGA. Turkey played an important role in gaining OIC consensus to support the Nuclear Terrorism Convention, Bicakli claimed, and is pressing on the CCIT in every platform as a matter of utmost importance. ¶4. (C) Bicakli acknowledged that some OIC member states remain a problem. Indeed, Turkey is not party to the OIC convention against terrorism owing to inclusion of the kind of language of the right to resistance against occupation and specific reference to state terrorism that forms red lines for the U.S. These phrases are red lines for Turkey as well, he declared. But the OIC itself is not the problem, and Turkish incumbency of the OIC secretary-generalship is thus not a lever for achieving consensus acceptable to Turkey or the U.S., Bicakli claimed. ¶5. (C) Turkey is chairman in office of the OIC group at the 60th UNGA, and will try to lobby the states -- e.g., Pakistan, Iran, and Syria -- that are insisting on unacceptable language. In answer to our query about which countries they thought the U.S. should concentrate its lobbying on, neither wished to give an answer. ¶6. (C) Bicakli and Oral then brought up the question of a general definition of terrorism. Acknowledging that achieving consensus on such a definition is impossible even among their Turkish colleagues, both seemed taken aback by our note that the U.S. does not want the effort to provide a legal base for cooperation in the pursuit of international terrorists distracted by the search for a definition of terrorism separate from the offenses to be described in the CCIT (ref). ¶7. (C) In this regard they asked three questions. First, whether the U.S. can accept the definition of terrorism in the draft convention's article 2. Second, whether the definition in UNSYG Annan's "In Larger Freedom" report, which refers to attacks on civilians and non-combatants, corresponds to what the U.S. could accept. Third, whether we could provide the MFA with the negotiation coordinator's draft language on article 18 (activities of military forces) that reftel says the U.S. could accept. ¶8. (C) Action request: post would be grateful for answers to the questions in para 7, including article 18 draft language, by June 16 if possible. MOORE