INVITATION TO NORTHERN GERMANY FOR THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

UNCLAS HAMBURG 000066 SIPDIS STATE FOR EUR/PPD SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PREL KPAO MASS MPOS GM SUBJECT: INVITATION TO NORTHERN GERMANY FOR THE GREAT WHITE FLEET REF: STATE 152640 ¶1. (U) On behalf of Mission Germany, U.S. Consulate General Hamburg would like to invite the Great White Fleet to Kiel, Germany to commemorate the fleet's historic trip, strengthen U.S. and European naval cooperation, and participate in U.S. public outreach at Northern Europe's largest regatta and nautical festival, Kiel Week or "Kieler Woche" from June 20 to 29, 2008 and within the framework of the Baltic Operations international maritime exercises. KIEL WEEK AND BALTOPS ¶2. (U) The annual Kiel Week regatta takes place in the Baltic Sea waters surrounding the Kiel Sound. The regatta and accompanying on-shore festival attract more than three million visitors from over seventy countries. Not only can festival-goers view the many international and Olympic class races, but also participate in over 1,700 cultural, educational, maritime, and sports programs that take place through-out the nine-day festival. However, Kiel Week not only presents a unique opportunity to reach a wide-ranging European audience interested in nautical affairs, it is traditionally the final stop of the U.S. military commanded naval Baltic Operations (BALTOPS). BALTOPS is a multiphase exercise consisting of in-port events, at-sea serialized training events, and a coordinated scenario exercise designed to develop interoperability in execution of a peacekeeping mission. This combined maritime and land exercise takes place in the Baltic Sea, with the goal of promoting mutual understanding, confidence, cooperation, and interoperability among forces and personnel of participating nations. BALTOPS 2007 participating countries were the United States, Denmark, Germany, Russia, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Latvia, France, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom. ¶3. (U) In order to combine the unique opportunity of hosting BALTOPS participating countries' military ships in the Kiel port with the Kiel Week festival, the German Navy hosts an "open ship" day on the first Saturday of the festival. Working with necessary security regulations, Mission Germany has developed special plans with the Germany Navy to improve U.S. presence at the Kiel Week festival as well as highlight U.S. - German naval cooperation. The German Navy is planning to host "open ship" related activities throughout the weekend of June 21-22 and Mission Germany has requested PAO support from USNAVEUR to give the festival a special American touch. With U.S. Ambassador Timken at the ceremonies, Mission Germany will be reaching out to interested school and university students, journalists, and the general public to emphasis the role of the U.S. Navy in today's changing world and the close teamwork between, not only the U.S. and Germany, but all of our European allies. ROLE FOR THE GREAT WHITE FLEET ¶4. (U) Especially because Germany was not on the Great White Fleet's original route a century ago, its presence at one of the Northern German ports would be an outstanding signal of Germany's important role in the United States' new Cooperative Maritime Strategy. Kiel and the Northern German naval stations are the home ports for German naval vessels participating in Operation Enduring Freedom in the Horn of Africa and UN peacekeeping activities off of Lebanon. The Kiel Week festival presents an exceptional opportunity to display the ships to an interested public and support the BALTOPS goals and U.S. outreach. The fleet's vessels will be at home with the many historic windjammers and military ships that attend the event. Mission Germany public affairs together with local partners can organize special information programs for the fleet in order to reach out to even more targeted audiences. One hundred years ago the Great White Fleet demonstrated U.S. military power, but more importantly U.S. friendship and cooperation. Mission Germany invites the fleet to make that overture again and continue a long tradition of U.S.-German friendship and cooperation in combination with the 36th BALTOPS exercises and the 126th Kiel Week regatta and festival. ¶5. (U) This message has been coordinated with Embassy Berlin. JOHNSON