TURKEY: ENGAGEMENT IN AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ANKARA 001217 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/12/2019 TAGS: PARM PGOV PTER PINS EAID MASS SUBJECT: TURKEY: ENGAGEMENT IN AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN REF: SECSTATE 82159 Classified By: CDA Doug Silliman for reasons 1.4 (b,d) ¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: Turkey's experience as an ISAF participant and lead nation, its long-term leadership of Wardak PRT and its sponsorship of the "Ankara Process" confirm its commitment to security and democracy in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Though constrained by limited resources, Turkey is willing to do more. Ambassador Holbrooke's engagement with Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Undersecretary-Designate Feridun Sinirlioglu can help catalyze additional Turkish contributions in the areas of education and health, economic integration, military training, counter-narcotics, and trilateral engagement. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (C) Turkey has commanded ISAF twice since its inception and will take command of RC-Capital this November. Turkey leads PRT Wardak and plans to open a second PRT in Jawzjan in early 2010. Turkey has sponsored the "Ankara Process" dialogue, ONE of several efforts to encourage constructive communications between Kabul and Islamabad and is a leading participant in the Friends of Democratic Pakistan. Turkey pledged significant aid to both countries: USD 200 million to Afghanistan and USD 100 million to Pakistan. Because of its culture, history and religious orientation, and Foreign Minister Davutoglu's strategic ambition, Turkey is well disposed to act as an agent of the international community's goals in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Constraining Turkey's potential is a lack of resources; however, Ambassador Holbrooke's engagement with Davutoglu and Sinirlioglu will reinforce the GoT's inclination to do more. Our conversations with Turkish interlocutors have helped us identify several areas in which Turkey can be of particular help: education and health, military training and support, economics, counter-narcotics, and trilateral engagement. EDUCATION AND HEALTH -------------- ¶3. (SBU) Turkey is already responding to the calls of Presidents Obama and Gul for increased international assistance to social development in Afghanistan and Pakistan. There is strong GOT support for continued and expanded Turkish assistance in the areas of education and rural and women's health. Ambassador Holbrooke may want to suggest to Davutoglu and Sinirlioglu that Turkey consider: - Offering the GIRoA lessons-learned on how to deliver a full range of government social services to remote populations derived from the GoT's decades-long effort to expand central government influence in Turkey's southeast. - Replicating across Afghanistan the success of the GoT-sponsored girl's school in Akcha. - Increasing the number of scholarships to Afghan students, especially in a multiethnic format that would encourage Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras to learn and work together. - Moving ahead on finalizing GoT plans to open a "teacher's college" that would develop a corps of teachers who would deploy to provincial schools nation-wide. - Undertaking the training of HEALTH care cadres or small clinical teams that could be deployed quickly to remote MILITARY TRAINING/SUPPORT -------------- ¶4. (C) Turkey has committed to participate in the European Gendarmerie Force initiative and to double its troop presence in Kabul by November to about 1800. Turkey has two OMLTs in Kabul; it will dispatch two more by November. It is also sending staff to the Afghan Defense University and War College. Adding Turkish military forces to ISAF in a combat role will be politically difficult, but Turkey may be willing to share with Afghanistan and Pakistan experiences derived from its decades-long counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency campaign against the terrorist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Ambassador Holbrooke may want to urge Davutoglu and Sinirlioglu to: - Expand Turkey's Wardak PRT police training facility into a national training center. Turkey prefers bringing Afghans to Turkey for training. Training throughput could be increased dramatically if Turkey shifted the bulk of its police training effort to Afghanistan itself. ANKARA 00001217 002 OF 002 - Develop early proposals for gendarmerie training within the context of the European Gendarmerie Force initiative and be prepared to send a robust Turkish Jandarma contingent to support such training. - Pursue Turkey's interest in developing joint training and exercise programs for Afghan and Pakistani security forces. Turkey has been discouraged by initial Pakistani reluctance; however, the GoT should endeavor to develop a training program that would prove ultimately attractive to both countries' security forces. ECONOMIC INTEGRATION -------------- ¶5. (SBU) Turkey has evinced interest in sponsoring Afghanistan-Pakistan economic integration projects, most notably by inaugurating at the April 1 "Ankara Summit" an Institute for Public Sector and Economic Development. Turkey has set, as ONE goal of its trilateral process with Afghanistan and Pakistan, identifying "complementarities" in the two economies, hoping thereby to build sustainable economic ties across the Durand Line. Ambassador Holbrooke may want to urge Davutoglu and Sinirlioglu to: - Focus on cross-border trade and investment. The GoT is tracking the progress of Reconstruction Opportunity Zone (ROZ) legislation through Congress. Turkish firms should try to reserve a place at the ROZ table by developing proposals now for cross-border investment projects. - Use Turkey's industry-leading road-building and trucking expertise to develop proposals for integrating Pakistan and Afghanistan's cross-border commercial transportation infrastructure. Turkish firms have also been instrumental in cross-border electrification projects with Turkey's immediate neighbors and could put that experience to good use in Pakistan and Afghanistan. COUNTER-NARCOTICS -------------- ¶6. (C) Turkey has trained over 100 Afghan counter-narcotics officers in Turkey. Fearful of engendering hostility among opium-growing farmers, the GoT remains reluctant to adopt a higher profile in field eradication or interdiction. Nevertheless, our Ministry interlocutors acknowledge that Turkey's success in transforming itself from ONE of the largest sources of European-bound heroin in the 1960s into a producer of quota-limited medicinal opiates may be instructive for the GIRoA at both the policy and implementation/law enforcement level. TRILATERAL ENGAGEMENT -------------- ¶7. (C) Turkey's "Ankara Process" has established itself as one of several fora for encouraging constructive communications between the Afghan and Pakistani governments. Ambassador Holbrooke may want to urge Davutoglu and Sinirlioglu to: - Be prepared to move quickly to invite the Afghanistan presidential election-winner's cabinet ministers and their Pakistani counterparts to an early resumption of the Ankara Process meeting series. - Continue to build institutional links and personal relationships between the Afghan and Pakistani governments particularly by facilitating military and intelligence contacts. ¶8. (U) The Ankara Embassy POC for working-level Af-Pak issues is Political Officer Diana Kramer ( 90 312 455 5555 x 7178.) Visit Ankara's Classified Web Site at http://www.intelink.sgov.gov/wiki/Portal:Turk ey Silliman