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