TURKEY: DETAINEE RESETTLEMENT FOLLOW-UP

C O N F I D E N T I A L ANKARA 001095 SIPDIS SIPDIS FOR AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE FOR WAR CRIMES ISSUES CLINT WILLIAMSON E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/10/2017 TAGS: PTER PINR TU SUBJECT: TURKEY: DETAINEE RESETTLEMENT FOLLOW-UP REF: A. STATE 54924 ¶B. ANKARA 819 ¶C. STATE 37005 Classified By: Acting Political Military Counselor Margaret Nardi for reasons 1.4 (b/d) ¶1. (C) Turkey has very small communities of some of the ethnic groups listed in ref a, including a group of ethnic Uighurs in Istanbul which is estimated to number about 5,000. There are also very small communities of ethnic Uzbeks, Somalis, and Sudanese, most of whom are economic migrants or political refugees, reside in the Istanbul area, and do not have legal resident status in Turkey. As reported ref b, the GOT rebuffed our request that Turkey consider resettling Guantanamo detainees of Uighur origin in 2005 and again responded negatively to our most recent, more general request for resettlement made in April 2007. We do not anticipate a GOT reversal on this position in the near term. ¶2. (C) With regard to GOT assistance with resettlement of detainees in a third country, we do not believe that Turkey has sufficiently strong political, economic or historic ties to countries that might serve as an alternate destination for specific detainees. We are not aware of any of any former colonial or development assistance connections to nations that already host refugees or migrants from the list of ethnic groups listed ref a that would be helpful to resettlement efforts. ¶3. (U) Embassy Ankara POC on this issue is Political Military Affairs Officer Christopher Rich, telephone (90)(312) 457-7177, NIPR: richce@state.gov, and SIPR: richce@state.sgov.gov. Visit Ankara's Classified Web Site at http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/ankara/ WILSON