TURKEY SUPPORTS U.S. NATO GOALS

C O N F I D E N T I A L ANKARA 000632 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/19/2017 TAGS: PREL NATO OVIP TU SUBJECT: TURKEY SUPPORTS U.S. NATO GOALS Classified By: Ambassador Ross Wilson, reasons: 1.4 (b/d) ¶1. (C) Summary: Turkish officials told USNATO PermRep Nuland that Turkey will maintain its commitments in Afghanistan and expand Wardak PRT operations, but would not commit to sending additional helicopters. Amb. Nuland praised Turkish contributions to ISAF while urging the Turks to do more and help keep other allies focused. She sought support for a comprehensive approach to missile defense and thanked the MFA for participating in the EU/NATO informal meeting on Kosovo. The MFA expressed support for NATO outreach to Africa and for the Global Partnership, and said it had firmly committed to Portugal for the 2008 summit in Lisbon. Deputy Chief of the Turkish General Staff (DCHOD) Ergin Saygun said that the NATO staff structure needs to be modernized, but without sacrificing the Air Component Command in Izmir. Saygun was adamant that the Turkish military will not talk to Iraqi Kurds as long as they provide support to PKK terrorists, but said the military does not oppose government contacts with the KRG. Turkey has done its part to stop dual use items along its border with Iran, but European countries must halt their export. End summary. Leadership in Afghanistan -------------- ¶2. (C) Turkey will expand its contributions to Afghanistan this year, MFA Director General for NATO Tomur Bayer and his staff told Amb. Nuland in Ankara on March 5. Turkey expects to have over 1,000 troops on the ground in addition to the 50-60 person crew and support for two Blackhawk helicopters by April, and will add 160 staff officers when it takes over command of ISAF-11. But more than military force is required, Bayer emphasized. Turkey has committed 100 million dollars to development assistance in the country and will expand the operations of its PRT in Wardak where Turkish NGOs currently support 27 schools. FM Gul had announced funding for a new hospital during his recent visit to Kabul. Turkey felt both a sentimental and political bond with Afghanistan, Bayer explained, because Kabul was the site of the first Turkish embassy abroad, opened in 1920, and the Afghan Embassy was the first foreign mission to open in the newly established Republic of Turkey in 1921. ¶3. (C) Amb. Nuland praised Turkish leadership in Kabul and Wardak, encouraged Turkey to actively keep European allies focused on Afghanistan as a C/T mission, and challenged the Turks to contribute even more, including sending more helicopters now and expanding troop deployment to the south in 2008-2009. Education and training were areas in which the Turks excel and might assist the Afghans more. Amb. Nuland encouraged more Turkish journalists to go to Afghanistan to get the positive story out. ¶4. (C) Bayer said the Turkish General Staff (TGS) would have to consider any expansion of Turkish forces to the south of Afghanistan. Turkey hoped for more positive engagement from Pakistan on Afghan border security, he said, noting that FM Gul had raised this with President Musharraf in Islamabad recently. Turkey is concerned that support from inside Afghanistan for the Baluchistan separatist problem is more serious than is being reported in the press; public statements from Kabul had not been helpful. ¶5. (C) In a separate meeting at TGS headquarters with DCHOD GEN. Saygun, Amb. Nuland expressed appreciation for the two helicopters Turkey is deploying to ISAF and urged Turkey to contribute more. Saygun was non-committal, noting that Turkey had sent helicopters to KFOR and needed the bulk of its fleet to battle PKK terrorism in the southeast of Turkey. Saygun suggested that progress against the PKK terrorist threat might allow Turkey to do more in the future. Nuland noted that her staff was beginning to think with SACEUR's staff about how NATO might establish a common helicopter logistics base in Afghanistan to avoid expensive redundancies. ¶6. (C) Saygun characterized ISAF's expansion into southern Afghanistan as hasty and conducted before adequate forces were available. He acknowledged, however, that NATO success in Afghanistan is critical; failure would be bad for Afghanistan but would also embolden the EU to seek greater defense responsibilities at NATO's expense. He was critical of command and control arrangements in Afghanistan, especially the use of composite headquarters vice High Readiness Forces (HRF),while Nuland defended the composite approach as providing for long term C2 stability. Support for Global Partnership, Lisbon Summit -------------- ¶7. (C) Bayer voiced strong support for NATO's comprehensive approach and for out-reach to the UN and the African Union in particular. NATO should expand the African training initiative and do more in Darfur, Somalia, and elsewhere, he said. The allies needed to be more forthcoming. Turkey is keen on global partnerships, he told Amb. Nuland. Turkey also wants to underscore the importance of NATO as a forum for allied discussion on a range of topics, and has prepared a list of Turkish experts who will be asked to give briefings in Brussels beginning with Deputy U/S Cevikoz, Turkey's former Ambassador to Baghdad. In contrast, Bayer expressed disdain for the European Defense Agency (EDA),which the GOT views as detrimental to NATO, with a competing agenda. Nuland thanked Turkey for its participation in the informal EU/NATO meeting on Kosovo, highlighting the importance of U.S. and Turkish cooperation on this issue and urging continued flexibility from the Turks. ¶8. (C) Bayer told Nuland that the GOT had already confirmed its full support for Portugal's bid to host the 2008 NATO summit in Lisbon. Romania, he said, had not approached Turkey about its desire to host the summit in Bucharest until long after Ankara had committed to the Portuguese. Nuland reviewed U.S. support for Bucharest and the reason for it. She pushed for Turkish flexibility if a compromise can be reached. NATO Command Structure -------------- ¶9. (C) GEN Saygun agreed that the NATO command structure needs to be modernized and redundant headquarters eliminated. He argued that the Air Component Command in Izmir should not be sacrificed. Decisions on headquarters should not be political. Nuland said the U.S. is open to further discussion on this issue. Saygun said that just as NATO is modernizing its force and command structures, it must also adapt its procedures to modern conditions. He said he no longer saw the need for a force planning institution, since planning is already conducted on an operational level. He also argued for the NATO Reaction Force (NRF) and other activities to be common funded, noting that it will cost the GOT over $300 thousand to move the two Blackhawks to Afghanistan. Nuland and Saygun agreed that common funding should be expanded. Saygun also expressed Turkey's preference for keeping the NRF separate from the NATO Strategic Reserve. Nuland replied that NATO can ill afford two half-empty reserve forces, which aren't allowed to go anywhere. Greece-Turkey -------------- ¶10. (C) Nuland raised the recent cancellation of a NATO CAOC exercise in the Aegean over Greek-Turkish disputes on the demilitarized nature of some Aegean islands with Saygun. She emphasized that such disputes harm the alliance at a time when everyone needs to focused on contributing to NATO missions, including Afghanistan. Saygun asserted the Greek military had leaked the dispute to the press; the Turks have been keeping it quiet. He claimed that during reciprocal visits by the Greek and Turkish CHODS, both sides had agreed to fly their air missions over the Aegean without weapons. The Greeks had rearmed their flights two days later. Despite these tensions, Greek officers had recently held meetings at TGS and a Turkish group was preparing to go to Athens. Nuland said this flare-up, and previous ones, had made it politically impossible for Greece to augment its Afghanistan contribution, and urged a restarting of the NATO Secretary General's "Good Offices" process to avoid such incidents in the future. Iraq -------------- ¶11. (C) MFA U/S Apakan underscored the importance to Turkey of maintaining Iraq's territorial integrity, warning that division of Iraq would be a strategic mistake with consequences not only for Iraq's neighbors, but for Europe and the U.S. Turkey wants to see a Shia-Sunni reconciliation so that Arab power can be restored to counter-balance Iran. With both Apakan and Saygun, Nuland noted that the U.S. and Turkey share a common interest in unity and stability in Iraq, and suggested that it is important that the Turkish government talk to Iraqi politicians at all levels, including Iraqi Kurds. Saygun was adamant that the Turkish military will not talk to Iraqi Kurds as long as they provide support to PKK terrorism, but said the military does not oppose government contacts with the KRG. He harshly criticized Masoud Barzani for his repeated provocative statements about Kurdish independence and Nechirvan Barzani for describing PKK terrorism as a "political" problem. Nuland urged Saygun to help create conditions for the GOT to talk through its problems directly with Iraqi Kurds. Iran -------------- ¶12. (C) U/S Apakan told Nuland that Turkey considers the nuclear threat from Iran to be real. DG Bayer stated that Turkey strongly supports a diplomatic process to counter Iran's nuclear program and emphasized the importance of a unified allied approach. Turkey would welcome a new Security Council resolution, he stated, and has taken every opportunity to urge Tehran to be transparent with the IAEA. Turkey had done its part to stop dual use items from entering Iran along its border, but it should be the obligation of European countries where such items are produced to halt their export, he said. Amb. Nuland praised Turkey's pressure on Iran and urged the GOT to remain firm. She sought support for a comprehensive approach to Iran and said she hoped for progress on missile defense before the June defense ministerial meeting. U.S.-Turkey Relations -------------- ¶13. (C) Saygun said that he was optimistic about bilateral relations and reported that he would attend the American Turkish Council (ATC) conference in Washington at the end of March, where the Turkish delegation will make a presentation on Turkish defense industry capabilities. He made a pitch for the U.S. to consider using Turkish facilities, such as MKEK and others, for the repair and refit of U.S. equipment coming out of Iraq. Members of Parliament with whom Amb. Nuland met were less sanguine about Turkish public views of the U.S. Istanbul CHP MP Bulent Tanla, a former pollster for the Gallop organization in Turkey, told Amb Nuland that opinion polls showed public views of the U.S. at an all time low. U.S. Iraq policy was partly to blame for this, he speculated, but the low public opinion of the U.S. may be misinformation and tied to popular suspicion about international organizations Turks link to the U.S. such as the IMF, the UN, and NATO. Visit Ankara's Classified Web Site at http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/ankara/ WILSON