FRENCH SAY SYRIA DELIVERING ON ALL FRONTS

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 PARIS 002212 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/05/2028 TAGS: PGOV PREL FR SUBJECT: FRENCH SAY SYRIA DELIVERING ON ALL FRONTS REF: A. PARIS POINTS OF DECEMBER 5 ¶B. DAMASCUS 863 PARIS 00002212 001.2 OF 003 Classified By: Political Minister-Counselor Kathleen H. Allegrone, reas ons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (S) Summary: "We think Syria is delivering on the key dossier," French Presidency Advisor for the Middle East Boris Boillon said December 5, as he recapped his November 30 visit to Damascus with Presidency Secretary General Claude Gueant and NSA-equivalent Jean-David Levitte. In contrast to his colleagues at the MFA (ref A),Boillon predicted that Syria would name an ambassador to Beirut by the end of the year, although he conceded that the Syrians might delay until the first few days of January "just to show that they are independent." Such a delay would not begin to affect the relationship unless it extended beyond President Sarkozy's January 6 visit to Lebanon and, even more gravely, beyond Lebanese President Michel Sleiman's state visit to Paris in March. He added that Lebanese diplomat Michel Khoury has been tapped to be Lebanon's ambassador to Syria. Boillon agreed with Syrian President Bashar al-Asad's argument that Sleiman should not run an independent bloc of candidates in Lebanon's parliamentary elections on the grounds that Lebanon's president should remain above politics. In a startling admission, al-Asad tacitly acknowledged that he is not preventing arms from transiting Syria to Hizballah, although the French read his comment as an indication that Syria would end weapons shipments if it were to conclude a peace agreement with Israel. Boillon said the French team encouraged the Syrians to be transparent with the IAEA, adding that it would be "catastrophic" for Syria's dispute with the IAEA to escalate. End summary. Syria Earns a Passing Grade -------------- ¶2. (S) The French Presidency believes Syria is earning a passing grade on the benchmarks set by President Sarkozy this summer, according to Middle East Advisor Boris Boillon. "We think Syria is delivering on the key dossier," Boillon said during a December 5 meeting with PolMinCouns and NEA Watcher. Recapping his November 30 visit to Damascus with Presidency Secretary General Claude Gueant and NSA-equivalent Jean-David Levitte, Boillon claimed that President al-Asad had assured his guests that Syria was on track to open an embassy in Beirut and exchange ambassadors with Lebanon by the end of the year. "What's the exact deadline?" Syrian FM Muallim reportedly asked, obliging the French diplomats to point out that the end of the year was commonly understood to be December 31. Boillon conceded the possibility that the Syrians -- who are "very stubborn" -- might deliberately miss the deadline by a day or so "just to show that they are independent and are not being forced to do anything." Such a delay was of no consequence. If, however, the Syrians had not named an ambassador by January 6, when Sarkozy will visit French troops serving with UNIFIL, the French would see matters in a very different light. In that event, President Sleiman's state visit to Paris in March would likely serve as a red line, beyond which the relationship would be subject to as-yet-undetermined cooling measures. Nevertheless, the upbeat Boillon seemed to view this possibility as remote and noted that Lebanon has tapped Lebanese diplomat Michel Khoury to represent Beirut in Damascus, and said the GOF is encouraging the GOL to announce Khoury's appointment as soon as possible so as to deprive the Syrians of any pretext for not naming their own ambassador. ¶3. (S) Despite the lingering question marks on the timeline for the ambassadorial exchange (as reported Ref A, the MFA is decidedly more pessimistic),Boillon emphasized that the French give al-Asad credit for having established a new and better atmosphere with Lebanese officials. In point of fact, he said that al-Asad seems to have a genuine respect for his new Lebanese counterpart and has become notably warmer in his meetings with other Lebanese leaders. ¶4. (S) Turning to other benchmarks, such as progress on border security/demarcation and on the return of missing Lebanese prisoners held in Syrian jails, Boillon said al-Asad claimed to have made progress on all. "We take a somewhat more nuanced view," said Boillon, who freely admitted that there had been no meaningful progress on any of those areas. However, he said Sarkozy's priority had always been the exchange of ambassadors: once that is completed, the French would focus on the other benchmarks in 2009 and push for concrete results. Opposing Sleiman's Electoral Bloc -------------- PARIS 00002212 002.2 OF 003 ¶5. (S) Al-Asad told the French that it would be a mistake for President Sleiman to form an independent bloc of candidates to run in the upcoming parliamentary election, since the confessional nature of the Lebanese polity requires the President to remain above the political fray. Boillon indicated that the French fully agreed with this reasoning. "We interpret (Michel) Aoun's visit to Damascus as a message from al-Asad to Sleiman that he should not try to set himself up as the leader of Lebanon's Christian community," said Boillon. In addition, the French also agreed with al-Asad's view that whatever the outcome of the parliamentary elections, Lebanon should again form a national unity government. Israel and Hizballah Arms -------------- ¶6. (S) The Syrian President indicated he was willing to re-engage in peace talks with the Israeli government. Indeed, al-Asad suggested his goal would be to take the talks as far as possible while PM Olmert remains in office, since progress would presumably be more difficult if a right-wing Israeli government were to come to power in 2009. Asked point-blank whether Syria would end its support of Hizballah in exchange for Israeli territorial concessions on the Golan Heights, al-Asad made a somewhat astonishing statement, which Boillon paraphrased as: "For the moment, I am not playing the role of policeman with regard to the arms that are going through Syria to Hizballah. But I understand Israel's security requirements." While al-Asad's comment is a tacit admission that he is aware of, and facilitates, arms shipments to Hizballah, the French interpreted it in a positive light. His meaning, said Boillon, was that in exchange for peace with Israel, al-Asad would be willing to turn off the arms flow to Hizballah. Nuclear Questions -------------- ¶7. (S) The French asked the Syrians whether they had pressed the Iranians on the need to cooperate with the IAEA. Al-Asad betrayed some annoyance with Iran, saying the only high level Iranian to visit Damascus in recent months was FM Mottaki, whom the Syrians dutifully encouraged to "accept international controls." However, al-Asad stressed that he did not want to carry any more water for the French on this issue, both because he believed Iran has a right to enrichment and because he found the P5 1 offer illogical since it was based upon offering the Iranians an end-state (no enrichment capability) that the Iranians have explicitly rejected. "He seems to have been affected by Iran's propaganda," mused Boillon. As for Syria's own troubles with the IAEA, al-Asad vehemently denied that the Al-Kibar site had been a nuclear installation. The French counseled transparency, warning that the IAEA was "like a pitbull" and adding that if the Syrians came clean with the IAEA as Libya had done, France would try to be helpful. However, Boillon noted that the French do not want to make Syria's IAEA Technical Project (i.e., the feasibility/site study) contingent upon such transparency. "If we take too hard of a line on the Technical Project, then the Syrians may pull back into their shell and turn again to Iran," said Boillon. PolMinCouns pushed back against this reasoning, but it was evident that Boillon had convinced himself that escalating pressure on Syria at the IAEA would be a mistake. Seeing Syria's relations with the IAEA devolve into a bitter standoff the way that Iraq's and Iran's had would be "a catastrophe," he maintained. ¶8. (S) Comment: That President Sarkozy's advisors are inclined to give the Syrians the benefit of the doubt on the exchange of ambassadors and other questions is no surprise: although the French insist that they fully understand the duplicitous nature of the Syrian regime, they have invested a great deal of Sarkozy's political capital into building bridges to Damascus and will tolerate a fair amount of elasticity so long as the relationship can be billed as a success. What is somewhat more troubling is the extent to which Boillon seemed to view Lebanese domestic politics through SARG-tinted glasses. While we defer to our colleagues in Beirut and Damascus for an authoritative analysis, al-Asad's professed concern for office of the Lebanese presidency strikes us as less probable than his fear that Sleiman's bloc would strip votes away from the pro-Syrian March 8 opposition. Likewise, the insistence on a national unity government (which the French see as essential for Lebanon's stability) might also be seen as a means of essentially depriving the March 14th movement of any victory it might achieve at the ballot box. Such a convergence of views, coupled with President Sleiman's emergence as France's preferred Lebanese interlocutor (notably, Boillon made not a PARIS 00002212 003.2 OF 003 single reference to PM Siniora, but his may also be in keeping with Sarkozy's preference of dealing directly with what he sees as his counterparts rather than with prime ministers),suggests that our conversations with the French about Lebanon and Syria are not going to get any easier in the short run. 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