PDAS VOLKER DISCUSSES AFGHANISTAN, KOSOVO,

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BRUSSELS 000777 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/22/2018 TAGS: PREL PARM PGOV NATO BO EUN GG IR MARR MOPS RS, AF SUBJECT: PDAS VOLKER DISCUSSES AFGHANISTAN, KOSOVO, GEORGIA, AND IRAN WITH EU BRUSSELS 00000777 001.2 OF 002 Classified By: Laurence Wohlers, USEU Minister Counselor for Political Affairs, for reasons 1.4 (B) and (D) ¶1. (C) Summary: PDAS Kurt Volker discussed Afghanistan, Kosovo, Georgia, and Iran at a lunch May 19 with Director General for Political and Military Affairs Robert Cooper and other EU officials. Cooper outlined EU priorities for the June 12 Support Conference for Afghanistan, including the need to pay special attention to elections and police. On Kosovo, Cooper said that the UN proposal needed only a few more changes before the EU could accept it. Cooper agreed that focusing on resolving the conflict between Georgia and Abkhazia was more sensible than getting stuck by dealing with it as a problem between Russia and Georgia. On Iran sanctions, Cooper said the EU had reached agreement on a new list of autonomous EU designations, including Bank Melli, but would wait for a response from Tehran on a possible Solana visit before moving toward formal adoption of the list. In a subsequent meeting, Council Policy Director Helga Schmid briefed PDAS Volker on EU thinking on Ukraine, Belarus and progress on updating the EU security strategy. End Summary. ¶2. (C) In addition to Robert Cooper, the May 19 lunch included EU Council Secretariat Civilian Conduct and Planning Capability Head of Section for Middle East/Asia Allison Weston and for Europe/Kosovo Kim Freidberg and European Commission Head of Unit for Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh Helen Campbell. On Afghanistan, Cooper said the international community should stress five points at the June 12 Paris Support Conference. First was "Afghanization" in order to build the capacity of the GOA and improve its public image. Second was accountability from the GOA in order to combat government corruption. Third was support for elections in Afghanistan, backed by funding. Fourth was giving new UN SRSG Kai Eide a more clearly defined coordinating role. Fifth was police. On the last point, Cooper said that while the Council Secretariat was not opposed to increasing the size of the EU police mentoring mission EUPOL, it was more concerned with making the mission function better. The Council Secretariat would like to increase the quality of the mission personnel to include more professional criminal investigators. Cooper also suggested the EU might be "over-doing" the security requirements for the mission to the extent that EUPOL staff were not able to get out of their bases. The Council Secretariat was looking at ways to re-calibrate the mission to increase personnel mobility, but they were up against the extreme security restrictions that member states had imposed. The new EU Civilian Police Commander was traveling to Afghanistan this week to review and assess the police mission. Weston noted that member states were unhappy with the lack of a formal arrangement between EUPOL and ISAF, the primary security provider in Afghanistan. She said that member states did not want to rely on a "gentlemen's agreement" or "handshake" when the lives of EU personnel were at stake. Pressed if this had ever presented an actual problem on the ground, Weston said no, but reiterated it is not a sufficient basis to rely on. ¶3. (C) Although the EU did have some arrangements with KFOR in place regarding its mission in Kosovo, Cooper expressed concern that those arrangements may not be sufficient in light of the large size of the EU mission there. More broadly on Kosovo, Cooper said that the UN would need to make clear that from June 15 its own mission would run down. Kim Frieberg added that the EU was concerned the Russians could use the UN Fifth Committee to prevent the hand-over of office space and other resources. On a more positive note, Cooper said that he had just met with Slovene Foreign Minister Rupel to discuss recent meetings in New York. Cooper expressed optimism that after a few changes were made to the UN's most recent proposal, the EU would be able to accept it. However, he cautioned that the UN had gone too far with Belgrade and would now have to walk themselves back. Cooper said that no matter what happened, the situation in the north would continue to be messy, but in response to Volker's question stressed that the EU did not want any differentiation between the north and the rest of Kosovo. ¶4. (C) Turning to Georgia, Volker said that some of Russia's actions following the NATO Summit in Bucharest had been troubling, including its shooting down of a Georgian surveillance drone April 20 and its unilateral increase in BRUSSELS 00000777 002.2 OF 002 peacekeeping forces in Abkhazia. Volker explained that the United States was counseling Georgia to stay focused on a political strategy and not fall into Russia's trap by acting militarily. He added that we had been coordinating with Sweden and Germany on a vehicle for direct discussions between Georgia and Abkhazia in order to re-focus the problem away from a direct Russia - Georgia conflict. Cooper agreed with this approach and said the EU would support it. In response to Cooper's question about France's position, Volker said the French seemed comfortable with the approach as long as it was decoupled from Georgia's desire to join Euro-Atlantic institutions. Cooper agreed that the French were "allergic" to anything connected with enlargement at the moment. ¶5. (C) In response to Volker's inquiry on EU discussions on Iran sanctions, Cooper said the EU had agreed on additional designations of Iranian entities and individuals, including Bank Melli, but was waiting for a response from Tehran on a possible EU visit before moving forward with those measures. Cooper said that Italy's change in government made "all the difference" in EU discussions on Iran sanctions. He added, however, that it would still need nudging and that since the Berlusconi government was business-oriented, it was important that a new mechanism to consult Italy on Iran sanctions decisions had been created. Policy Unit Director: Ukraine, Belarus, EU Security Strategy -------------- -------------- ¶6. (C) In a subsequent meeting, Council Policy Planning Director Helga Schmid told PDAS Volker that the EU was very worried about political developments in Ukraine, adding that Ukraine's future was high on High Rep Solana's list of priorities. Both Yushchenko and Tymoshenko seemed to be making irrational choices: a case in point was Yuschenko's decision to meet with Belarussian President Lukashenko. The result was that the country was directionless. Schmid added that the EU was particularly concerned about the potential for Russian mischief, taking advantage of Ukraine's political divisions. Under the circumstances, Schmid said, it would be useful for the United States and the EU to coordinate closely our messages to the Ukrainians. Schmid supported Volker's suggestion of a joint U.S.-EU-Ukrainian strategic effort to reform Ukraine's energy sector. She promised to provide a readout of the upcoming EU-Ukraine ministerial troika. Turning to Belarus, Schmid noted that the EU agreed with the U.S. decision not to completely close its mission in Minsk. She believed that there were factions in the GOB who wanted to de-escalate. She was hopeful that this would be the case, but in the meantime the EU was making clear to Belarus that its relationship with the EU was frozen. ¶7. (C) Summarizing efforts to update the EU's security strategy, Schmid said that an early draft was currently circulating among member states. The timeline was for the PSC to discuss the week of May 26th, a draft report should then be ready for the June GAERC and the final product would be completed by December. Schmid did not expect radical changes, but thought there would be more emphasis on the security aspects of migration, climate change, and the nexus between security and development, and a new focus on protecting information infrastructure. She thought that the strategy would be most useful if it included a strong practical focus on improving capabilities, particularly in a NATO-EU context. The EU-27, she said, needed to have a serious internal discussion about capabilities, citing air transport and helicopters as examples of pressing needs. PDAS Volker noted that it would be useful for the United States and the EU to share conceptual thinking on security strategies before we finalize them. Schmid agreed, noting that she planned to invite S/P Director Gordon to Brussels in the fall, and this would be one of the topics. ¶8. (U) PDAS Volker has cleared this report. MURRAY .