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

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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

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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
.