Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
08PARIS2055
2008-11-07 17:26:00
SECRET
Embassy Paris
Cable title:  

MFA PREVIEWS PART OF FM KOUCHNER'S MESSAGE WITH

Tags:  FR PREL 
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VZCZCXRO6022
OO RUEHFL RUEHKW RUEHLA RUEHROV
DE RUEHFR #2055/01 3121726
ZNY SSSSS ZZH
O 071726Z NOV 08
FM AMEMBASSY PARIS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 4793
INFO RUEHXK/ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
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).

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