SLOVAKIA TO CONSIDER SENDING POLICE TO AFGHANISTAN

C O N F I D E N T I A L BRATISLAVA 000161 SIPDIS SCA/A FOR TOM REOTT E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/06/2019 TAGS: PREL NATO MARR MOPS AF PK LO SUBJECT: SLOVAKIA TO CONSIDER SENDING POLICE TO AFGHANISTAN UNDER EU AUSPICES REF: A. SECSTATE 31102 ¶B. SECSTATE 29482 ¶C. BRATISLAVA 154 Classified By: Charge d'Affaires, a.i., Keith A. Eddins for reasons 1.4 (b/d). ¶1. (U) This is an action message; please see paragraph five. ¶2. (C) Summary: Charge raised ref A and B points on police trainers and mentors with Minister of Interior Robert Kalinak on April 2. Kalinak reiterated an earlier offer to train Afghan police in Slovakia, but -- when pressed -- also agreed to give serious consideration to sending Slovak police to join an EU mission. Kalinak said he hoped to be able to honor our request, given that U.S. policy was clearly shifting from a focus on Iraq to a focus on Afghanistan, which is consistent with Slovak policies and thus likely to be more politically palatable to Prime Minister Fico and the Slovak people. End Summary. ¶3. (C) Drawing on refs A and B, Charge met Kalinak April 2 and gave him a non-paper outlining our specific requests concerning police training and mentoring, as well as the full text of our white paper on Afghanistan and Pakistan. He emphasized to Kalinak our belief that Slovakia could most usefully provide a fully-formed police mentoring team. Kalinak's initial reaction was consistent with what we have heard from him and his colleagues before: Slovakia would welcome hosting Afghan police for training in Slovakia, but would be hard-pressed to send Slovak policemen to Afghanistan. While noting there were technical reasons that would make such deployments difficult, Kalinak freely acknowledged that the biggest problem would be political. He explained that the public understands that soldiers enlist with the knowledge they might be subject to foreign deployment, but it's not the same with police. This problem would be magnified, he continued, if a policeman were killed or seriously injured in Afghanistan. ¶4. (C) In response, Charge pressed Kalinak on the importance the United States, NATO, the EU, and the UN attach to a successful outcome in Afghanistan, and noted that police do, in fact, join the force knowing the potential exists for lethal encounters. He also voiced appreciation that Slovakia has been willing to send troops and commit scarce foreign assistance resources to Afghanistan, but explained that now was the time to move forward in the police sphere. Kalinak then reread our non-paper and picked up on the fact that we are also asking the EU to fully staff its EUPOL mission in Afghanistan. He volunteered that Slovakia would be better able to consider sending police within an EU framework rather than on a bilateral basis. Without making a commitment and without getting into numbers, Kalinak said he would instruct his staff to give serious consideration to responding positively to an EU request for police to meet the EU commitment. Kalinak suggested we follow up with his director of international police cooperation, who will be responsible for handling this issue. ¶5. (C) Comment and Action Request: When we met April 1 with the MFA (ref C),they were doubtful the Slovak Ministry of Interior would seriously consider dispatching pQice mentors/trainers to Afghanistan, and Kalinak's initial reaction bore out their skepticism. Kalinak did, however, seem sincere in his willingness to revisit the question of sending Slovak police provided they went under an EU flag. While we will continue to encourage the Slovaks to send their own mentoring team, we would welcome additional guidance on how best to hook the Slovaks up with the EU police mission. Please provide details to Embassy Bratislava Pol/Mil Officer Aaron Chase at ChaseAU@state.gov or ChaseAU@state.sgov.gov EDDINS