EU FRIENDS OF TURKEY ON AKP CLOSURE CASE REACTIONS

C O N F I D E N T I A L ANKARA 001148 SIPDIS EUCOM PLEASE PASS TO POLAD E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/19/2018 TAGS: PGOV PREL EU TU SUBJECT: EU FRIENDS OF TURKEY ON AKP CLOSURE CASE REACTIONS REF: ANKARA 1135 Classified By: CLASSIFIED BY ROSS WILSON FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D) ¶1. (c) A close-hold, ad hoc EU Friends of Turkey group consisting of the foreign ministers of the UK, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Finland, plus Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, met June 19 to discuss possible reactions to a Turkish Constitutional Court decision to close the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and ban its leaders. (Poland was reportedly invited, but did not attend.) According to UK Ambassador to Turkey Nick Baird, Rehn took the line foreshadowed in reftel: AKP closure and individual bans should lead to an informal suspension of Turkey's accession process until the second half of 2009. The accession talks would resume, in Rehn's thinking, if Turkey has carried out a constitutional reform that, among other things, makes it harder to ban political parties. This conditionality would be clearly stated to the Turks and presumably publicly, as well. ¶2. (c) Baird indicated that UK Foreign Secretary Miliband took a tough line against this approach. Miliband said that any post-closure Turkish government, even one headed by a reform minded and renamed AKP, will find it extremely difficult to take on constitutional reform. Any effort to change the constitution now would almost certainly engender an appeal by the anti-EU opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) to the Constitutional Court. In the present climate, the court will likely reject the kinds of changes sought by Rehn as inconsistent with the "unalterable" elements of the present, post-1980 military-drafted constitution. The EU would just be setting Turkey and its accession process up for failure, especially when paired with review of the Ankara Protocol/Cyprus embargo issue also anticipated for the second half of 2009 and which test Turkey will also likely fail. ¶3. (c) In the Friends meeting, other European ministers reportedly asked questions of Rehn and Miliband, but stated no clear view. One upshot, however, is that when Italian FM Frattini visits Ankara June 25, he will use an expected meeting with PM Erdogan to brief him on the risks to Turkey in the EU and possibly discuss ways to head them off. (Comment: Since Erdogan is now almost powerless to influence the closure case's outcome, it is unclear what Frattini hopes really to achieve.) ¶4. (c) Baird said that he and other EU ambassadors believe Rehn's approach is dangerous for Turkey and EU interests here. He acknowledged that Rehn is emotional about a Turkish body politic that has "let him down" and believes that EU credibility requires a clear stand on democracy and human rights here. Baird said the task now is to talk Rehn out of a dead-end approach. He hopes to use a meeting following Frattini of EU Friends ambassadors in Ankara to take stock and develop an alternative approach. He thought one possibility may be for the EU clearly to call for constitutional reform and changes on party closure rules without a suspension or threat of suspension that would effectively aid those most hostile to the EU. ¶5. (c) Ambassador meets with a selected group of EU ambassadors on June 23 to discuss this further, and Baird said he would try to get Ambassador included in the local EU Friends of Turkey meeting here after Frattini's visit. Unless instructed otherwise, Ambassador will reiterate strong US support for Turkey's accession per the President's remarks after the US-EU Summit just days ago and will urge against any concrete EU reactions to a decision on closure and bans that would or could lead to the termination of Turkey's EU accession effort. ¶6. (c) Post again urges senior-level consultations and intercession with the EC and EU as soon as possible. At least from our vantage point in Ankara, the right approach to plan on now, especially in advance of the court's ruling and some clearer sense of its follow-on effects for this country,s democratic institutions, should emphasize what we are for -- democracy, stability, respect for the will of the voters and the rule of law -- rather than make demands or draw lines in the sand that may be destructive of Western interests here. Visit Ankara's Classified Web Site at http://www.intelink.sgov.gov/wiki/Portal:Turk ey WILSON