FADILLAH PARTY VOWS TO HELP END THE BOYCOTT

C O N F I D E N T I A L BASRAH 000061 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 4/26/2016 TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM IZ SUBJECT: FADILLAH PARTY VOWS TO HELP END THE BOYCOTT REF: (A) BASRAH 19; (B) BASRAH 43 CLASSIFIED BY: Ken Gross, Regional Coordinator, REO Basrah, State Department. REASON: 1.4 (b),(d) ¶1. (C) The Regional Coordinator (RC) for the Basrah Regional Embassy Office (REO),Deputy Regional Coordinator and IPAO met with Dr. Hayder al-Wa'eli, head of the Basrah Fadillah Party and Sheikh Khazl Jaloob Falih (Abu Salom),a prominent Fadillah member of the Basrah Provincial Council (BPC) to discuss the BPC's continued boycott of the British and the Danes. (See Ref (A) for the BPC's decision to boycott and Ref (B) for more on Abu Salom and his activities on the BPC.) Abu Salom, who the REO had tried unsuccessfully to meet with in the past few months, spoke of the need for the presence of the Coalition Forces and the "unfortunate" lack of good intentions by British authorities that caused the boycott against the United Kingdom to continue. He stressed the need for "openness" by Coalition Forces and the illegal detention of Basrah citizens by the UK military. Abu Salom said the BPC's boycott against the Danes was easier to resolve. ¶2. (C) Abu Salom dominated most of the conversation, but after some minutes Dr. Hayder broke in to say that the boycott against the Brits and the Danes could be ended "within days, if not hours." He said that Fadillah had assumed a leadership role in the BPC to persuade the other parties to end their recalcitrant stance. Dr. Hayder promised that Fadillah would take "two or three steps forward for every step the British took" to resolve the boycott, and he evinced more certainty that the boycott against the Danes would end soon. ¶3. (C) Comment: The BPC meets on the afternoon of April 26 and should decide to end its boycott against the Danes. The Danish Mission in Basrah has had extensive talks with Fadillah party members, and a short explanatory letter from the Danish Foreign Minister to the BPC will be read into the BPC record. All signs point to a quick resolution of the two-month boycott against the Danes. The British Consulate in Basrah is also sanguine about the BPC ending its boycott on April 26. The Acting British Consul General told the RC on April 25 that he expected the BPC to vote to end the boycott during its April 26 meeting, but the BPC may well decide to end its boycotts one at a time. In any event, we expect both boycotts to end soon. GROSS