TURKEY SAYS IT IS IMPLEMENTING THE DUAL USE ITEM

C O N F I D E N T I A L ANKARA 000573 SIPDIS SIPDIS ISN/RA FOR RICHARD NEPHEW E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/27/2018 TAGS: KNNP PARM NSG IR MNUC TU SUBJECT: TURKEY SAYS IT IS IMPLEMENTING THE DUAL USE ITEM PROVISION OF UNSCR 1803 REF: STATE 29464 Classified By: Political-Military Counselor Carl Siebentritt for reason s 1.4 (b,d). ¶1. (C) MFA Arms Control Department Head Elif Ulgen expressed appreciation for reftel non-paper and stressed Turkey's commitment to implementing the dual use item prohibitions of UNSCR 1803, during a March 27 meeting. Ulgen shared that Turkish Customs officials had prevented the shipment of dual use CNC machine tools bound for Iran as recently as the week of March 17. (Note: Ulgen stated they were 3-axis, not 5-axis, CNC machine tools. End note). She added that all relevant agencies, including the Turkish Atomic Energy Authority (TAEK),which licenses dual use items, are on board with UNSCR 1803 restrictions and that NSG dual use items are already listed as such in Turkish export licensing regulations. ¶2. (C) Ulgen added that she had participated in an export control outreach conference in Istanbul on March 26, where an interagency group briefed a large number of Turkish exporters, including some suspected in the past of seeking to circumvent export controls, on export controls and licensing requirements. She said that UNSCR 1803 restrictions were included in this event. ¶3. (C) Comment: Ulgen and her boss, Arms Control and Disarmament Deputy Director Ahmet Muhtar Gun, have assured us that Turkey periodically interdicts shipments of proscribed items to its neighbors based on its own sources of information. Turkish officials are reluctant to provide us details of these actions, however, to avoid jeopardizing "neighborly relations" with Iran and Syria. We continue to encourage them to tell us, on a confidential basis, their counter-proliferation success stories. Visit Ankara's Classified Web Site at http://www.intelink.sgov.gov/wiki/Portal:Turk ey WILSON