MFA PREVIEWS PART OF FM KOUCHNER'S MESSAGE WITH

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 PARIS 002055 SIPDIS NEA/FO DAS HALE E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/07/2023 TAGS: FR PREL SUBJECT: MFA PREVIEWS PART OF FM KOUCHNER'S MESSAGE WITH PDAS RIES Classified By: Political Minister-Counselor Kathleen H. Allegrone, reas ons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (C) Summary: During his November 11 visit to Washington, FM Kouchner will share the long-awaited EU paper on the Trans-Atlantic Partnership, MFA DAS-equivalent Ludovic Pouille told EUR PDAS Marcie Ries November 7. Specifically, Kouchner, whose intended audience is President-elect Obama and his transition team, will deliver ideas on how the US and the EU can improve their cooperation on questions involving the Middle East (to include the Arab-Israeli peace process, Lebanon/Syria, Iraq and Iran),Pakistan/Afghanistan, and Russia. On the Middle East, Pouille said Kouchner would urge that the new Administration demonstrate "from day one" its interest in achieving Israeli-Palestinian peace, that it engage with Syria, and that it consult closely with the EU3 before opening any form of dialogue with Iran. While Pouille's message was unsurprising -- the French have been telegraphing their intention to initiate such a dialogue for several months -- his comments provide a useful summation of French thinking on the Middle East as 2008 draws to a close. See comment para 9. End summary. Kouchner's Message in Brief -------------- ¶2. (C) EUR PDAS Marcie Ries, accompanied by NEA Watcher, met November 7 with MFA DAS-equivalent for the Levant Ludovic Pouille. Pouille noted that FM Kouchner, who will speak at the Brookings Institute in Washington D.C. on November 11, intended to use his visit to deliver the long-awaited EU paper on renewing the Trans-Atlantic Partnership, to include specific suggestions on how to improve US-EU cooperation on a wide range of issues in the Middle East, Afghanistan/Pakistan, and Russia. Pouille added that EU foreign ministers signed off on Kouchner's message during their November 3 meeting on the margins of the Mediterranean Union meeting in Marseilles, and that the proposals regarding the Middle East (to include international guarantees on final status issues such as refugees, security and Jerusalem) are taken from the revised November 2007 EU Action Plan for the Middle East, which is expected to be formally approved at the December 2008 GAERC. ¶3. (C) On the Middle East, Kouchner's message will boil down to a plea for the new Administration to remain engaged: "We have to work hand-in hand. We have common interests and allies. We want to promote moderates over radicals, and we cannot afford for the US to be disengaged from any of the several peace processes (Israeli-Palestinian, Israeli-Syrian, Syrian-Lebanese) underway. We need to keep the momentum going, especially on the Annapolis Process, and we need you to work with us from day one." Returning to this theme at several points in the conversation, Pouille stressed the importance of signaling "from day one" of the new Administration that the US remains engaged in the peace process. "We don't expect President Obama to personally take the political risk by visiting the region in March 2009," he clarified. "But what Europe expects is a signal that he and his Secretary of State are engaged." The Quartet and Israeli-Palestinian Peace -------------- ¶4. (C) Turning to the various "tools" for US-EU cooperation in the region, Pouille said the November 9 Quartet meeting would provide an important opportunity for the international community, including the Arab states, to insist that the Annapolis Process is necessary, that it transcends personalities, and that it must continue regardless of any leadership changes on either the Israeli or the Palestinian side. As for the Quartet itself, Pouille said it needed to be re-invigorated and redefined. He compared the Quartet to a vehicle being piloted by the US with the EU in the backseat. Moving forward, he said, the EU would prefer to be the co-pilot and put the Arab states in the backseat. For example, the EU could play a much more robust role in monitoring the parties' adherence to their roadmap commitments, greatly expanding the extant US monitoring mission: "We go places, such as Gaza, where you (the US) can't." Although he acknowledged that Israel had at times been wary of heightened EU involvement in the peace process, Pouille suggested that Israel's steadily improving relations with the EU ("in the end, Israel will be closer to the EU than any other non-EU state; it will be on par with Ukraine") would likely make such involvement more palatable. ¶5. (C) Pouille assessed that whatever the performance of FM PARIS 00002055 002 OF 003 Livni's Kadima party in the February 2009 elections, the Israeli right would emerge strengthened. Consequently, though he lauded Livni's courage in not making concessions to the Shas party, he predicted that it would be even more difficult for Livni (or anyone else) to assemble a peace coalition in the next Israeli government. "Shas will still be the key player, so the question is: How to influence Shas?" said Pouille. Turning to the potential for a Likud victory, Pouille said the key to dealing with a right-wing Israeli government would be for the international community to insist that there is no credible alternative to the Annapolis process and the two-state solution, and that Israel's future will be put in jeopardy without the creation of a Palestinian state. Pouille conceded that the combination of a right-wing Israeli government and a weakened Palestinian Authority President (Mahmoud Abbas) might tempt the US to disengage from the peace process in early 2009, but warned that any such disengagement would be the death of the two-state solution. "Abu Mazen (i.e., Abbas) would leave, Hamas would take over the West Bank, the settlement enterprise would continue, and the Palestinians would eventually begin fighting for a one-state solution while the Israeli right would fight to return Gaza to Egypt and West Bank cantons to Jordan -- which is not a credible solution . . . We would lose the chance for peace for at least a generation," he said. ¶6. (C) Pouille suggested that the international community should instead use the Moscow Conference in spring 2009 to set a goal of helping the parties finalize an agreement by the end of the year, so that the January 2010 Palestinian Legislative Council elections would become a referendum on the peace process. "If Abu Mazen doesn't have something to take to the electorate, then Fatah will be decimated by Hamas," Pouille predicted. Syria -------------- ¶7. (C) Pouille predicted that the incoming Administration would attempt to engage Syria and said that France would encourage this, adding (without a trace of irony) that Paris would advise Washington to do so "with caution." In a somewhat surreal argument, Pouille contended it was important "to help Bashar (al-Asad) within the Syrian regime" against unspecified regime elements set against his "tactical choices" to normalize relations with Lebanon, enter peace talks with Israel, and open doors to European. "Bashar has made the right choices since last spring, and we need to build on those choices. It's in our interests to bring Syria back into the Arab nation and to break the regime away from Iran," said Pouille, who added that regime change in Syria was not in prospect and even if it were, would most likely empower the Islamists. He stressed that Hizballah has become "the key" to concluding peace between Tel Aviv and Damascus, which was not the case at the beginning of the Oslo process. Iran/Iraq -------------- ¶8. (C) Noting that it was not part of his portfolio, Pouille nevertheless ventured to predict that FM Kouchner would deliver a simple message about Iran: That the EU welcomes President-elect Obama's stated interest in having a dialogue with Iran, and that the EU and the US need to think collectively about the framework of such a dialogue to ensure that it is consistent with the EU3 approach. "Clearly, what the Iranians have wanted from the beginning is a dialogue with the US without preconditions; the question is how to structure the dialogue so that the Iranians do not perceive it as a free gift," said Pouille. As for Iraq, Kouchner's message will be simple: Europe is ready to help. Comment -------------- ¶9. (S) Comment: While there was nothing particularly surprising about the content of Pouille's preview (see, for example, Paris 1927),his comments provide a useful summation of French thinking on the Middle East as 2008 draws to a close. In addition, they reflect President Sarkozy's enthusiasm for tackling truly difficult challenges head-on, and a genuine desire to have France's ideas validated -- and shared -- by Washington. We have been trying to temper French expectations by reminding our interlocutors to expect continuity on most foreign policy questions, and in particular on subjects -- such as US sponsorship of the PARIS 00002055 003 OF 003 Annapolis Process -- that enjoy strong bipartisan consensus. That the US will remain actively engaged in promoting Middle East peace is a given; whether the parties see any value at this stage in exploring EU ideas on final status guarantees is far less certain (our impression, based on conversations with the Israeli embassy here, is that the Israelis remain quite dubious about the French proposals). Nonetheless, we welcome FM Kouchner's visit as an opportunity to renew and strengthen our cooperation on the broad range of our mutual interests in the Middle East, and recommend that the Department agree to maintain a continual and candid dialogue with the EU on all of these issues in the months ahead. Doing so costs us nothing and will engender a wholly disproportionate amount of European goodwill -- goodwill that will magnify our influence here and in the Middle East. ¶10. (U) PDAS Ries has cleared this cable. STAPLETON