AFGHANISTAN: SEEKING SWISS SUPPORT FOR THE AFGHAN

C O N F I D E N T I A L BERN 000573 SIPDIS DEPT FOR SCA/A, DRL, AND EUR/CE (Y.SAINT-ANDRE) E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/06/2013 TAGS: PGOV KDEM PREL AF SZ SUBJECT: AFGHANISTAN: SEEKING SWISS SUPPORT FOR THE AFGHAN ELECTIONS AND THE ANA REF: A. STATE 108855 ¶B. BERN 525 Classified By: POL/E Counselor Richard A. Rorvig; reasons 1.4(b) and (d ). -------------- ELECTIONS -------------- ¶1. (C) POLOFF delivered the reftel A message on November 6 to Pierre-Yves Fux, Senior Coordinator for South Asia at the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (EDA). Fux was not aware of the UNDP "basket fund" and appreciated the information. He noted that Switzerland has made a multi-year commitment (approximately CHF 100 million over five years, 2006-2010) to civil reconstruction in Afghanistan, and reported that the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation (SDC) is increasing its staffing in Kabul from three to five Swiss nationals. However, while acknowledging the importance of the 2009/2010 Afghan elections, Fux could make no commitments that the GOS would provide funding support for those elections. He commented that Swiss foreign assistance funding is on a tight budget, but the GOS's decision to phase out its assistance programs in Pakistan eventually could provide some additional resources. Fux undertook to coordinate within the GOS to determine whether Swiss election funding support would be feasible. He also noted that, if Afghan refugees are included in the elections, there might be additional (theoretical) funding options available to the EDA/SDC. -------------- AFGHAN NATIONAL ARMY (ANA) -------------- ¶2. (C) Fux also told POLOFF on November 6 that Swiss inter-agency feedback thus far on the idea of funding for ANA sustainment was not positive. He attributed this mostly to atmospherics, explaining that the idea of substantial Swiss funding assistance to ANA sustainment tended to get tangled up with the broader domestic political debate about Swiss military engagement abroad. Public and parliamentary concerns about such engagement ultimately undermined Swiss participation in ISAF, which the MOD ended only a year ago, Fux observed. Though the GOS has continued occasionally to provide training in civil-military relations to a small number of individual Afghan military officers in Switzerland, and the MOD is pursuing a donation of excess hospital equipment to the ANA, Fux indicated that such support did not rise to the level of generating political debate in Switzerland. He said candidly that he could press the issue for a definitive GOS answer to our request for sustainment funding to the ANA, but that doing so in the current domestic Swiss political atmosphere likely would generate a negative response. Fux further suggested that avoiding a negative GOS decision on this question now could possibly preserve flexibility for more GOS support to the ANA at some point in the future. CONEWAY