TURKEY'S EXPLANATION FOR WEAK IAEA STATEMENT ON

C O N F I D E N T I A L ANKARA 000882 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/22/2019 TAGS: KNNP AORC IAEA IR TU SUBJECT: TURKEY'S EXPLANATION FOR WEAK IAEA STATEMENT ON IRAN COMES UP SHORT REF: UNVIE 293 Classified By: DCM Doug Silliman for reason 1.4 (b, d) ¶1. (C) On June 22, DCM met with Hakan Fidan, PM Erdogan's Foreign Policy Adviser and also Turkey's governor on the IAEA, to discuss Turkey's national statement on Iran. DCM expressed regret that the Turkish national statement did not call for Iran to provide transparency and access to the IAEA and did not call for Iran to implement the Additional Protocol and relevant UNSC and IAEA Board resolutions. DCM welcomed Turkey's national statement which called on Syria to cooperate fully with the IAEA investigation. ¶2. (C) Fidan said that he had expected the U.S. to be disappointed in Turkey's statement on Iran, and acknowledged that the Iran and Syria statements seemed inconsistent. Fidan sought to explain: Turkey took a considered decision to make its position distinct from that of the U.S. and the EU. Turkey remained concerned about Iran's non-compliance, but thought it is counterproductive to take a sharp tone with Iran. "We wanted to leave Iran at least one un-burned bridge to the West," Fidan said. On Syria, however, Turkey's message was intentionally strong: "You say you seek to engage with the West, yet your actions do not support these claims." Comment -------------- ¶3. (C) Turkey consistently explains that its practice is to save its harsh rebukes of Iran for private conversations, keeping public statements vaguely positive, even -- as in this case -- at the expense of drawing ire from the USG. Visit Ankara's Classified Web Site at http://www.intelink.sgov.gov/wiki/Portal:Turk ey JEFFREY