SYRIAN DELEGATION'S MISSION TO BAGHDAD

S E C R E T DAMASCUS 000218 NOFORN DEPT FOR NEA/FO, NEA/ELA, NEA/I; NSC FOR SHAPIRO/MCDERMOTT; LONDON FOR TSOU E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/23/2019 TAGS: PREL IZ SY UK SUBJECT: SYRIAN DELEGATION'S MISSION TO BAGHDAD REF: DAMASCUS 168 Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Maura Connelly for reasons 1.4(b,d) -------------- Summary -------------- ¶1. (S/NF) According to a reliable Embassy source, a Syrian delegation consisting of FM Walid al-Muallim and Deputy Vice President for Security Affairs Muhammad Nassif Khayr-Bayk will arrive in Baghdad on March 24. The delegation's mission is to prepare for a meeting between Syrian President Bashar al-Asad and Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki at the annual Arab League Summit in Doha, Qatar, on March 28. The source claimed that the Syrian delegation would share intelligence with the Iraqis on cross-border terrorist and criminal networks as one of its initial steps towards greater engagement with the GOI. The Syrians will also attempt to find common ground with the Iraqis by focusing on the common threat posed by Saudi support for militant "salafist" groups. End summary. -------------- Composition and Mission of Syrian Delegation -------------- ¶2. (S/NF) President and General Manager of Gulfsands Petroleum Mahdi Sajjad (strictly protect) told us that he would be accompanying Syrian FM Walid al-Muallim and Deputy Vice President for Security Affairs Muhammad Nassif Khayr-Bayk on the Syrian delegation's upcoming visit to Baghdad. The Iraq-born, British-educated Sajjad said that the delegation's mission is to prepare for a meeting between Iraqi PM Maliki and Syrian President Asad at the March 28 Arab League (AL) Summit in Doha. Sajjad reported that he and the Syrian officials would arrive in Baghdad March 24, and had no confirmed date of departure. He claimed that Iraqi President Jalal Talabani had joked to Sajjad that he would offer the Syrian delegation a plane to fly them directly from Baghdad to Doha in time for the AL Summit, if necessary. -------------- Syrians to Share Intelligence on Smuggling Network -------------- ¶3. (S/NF) According to Sajjad, Khayr-Bayk will present the Iraqi government with a "thick dossier" on terrorist and criminal activity emanating from Iraq that the Syrians perceive as a continuing threat. (Note: Sajjad said that the aging Khayr-Bayk "was not well," but that Asad trusted no one else sufficiently to take on this assignment. End note.) Sajjad claimed that British diplomats -- specifically, PM's Security Advisor Simon MacDonald, British Ambassador to Syria Simon Collis, and former British Ambassador to Syria John Jenkins -- and British intelligence officials had encouraged the Syrians to establish an intelligence liaison with Iraq as an initial step in developing the GOI-SARG relationship. British officials, said Sajjad, hoped that a Syrian-U.S. intelligence liaison would eventually evolve "from Baghdad." ¶4. (S/NF) Sajjad claimed that Khayr-Bayk's dossier contained sensitive information about a cross-border smuggling network run by the former head of the Syrian Political Security Directorate (PSD),Major General Muhammad Mansurah, who was reportedly fired in mid-January (reftel). According to Sajjad, the SARG's investigation into Mansurah's network had revealed significant involvement by various Iraqi parties and tribes, and the Syrians would ask for GOI help in shutting the operation down on the Iraqi side of the border. (Note: Mansurah was at one time a SARG representative to the Iraqi Neighbors Border Security Working Group. End note.) Sajjad added that the SARG's investigation had also revealed Mansurah's involvement in the smuggling operation run by the former head of the Syrian Customs Directorate, Brigadier General Hasan Makhlouf (a distant relative of Muhammad and Rami Makhlouf),whose January 2009 arrest was widely covered in local media. -------------- Common Ground Against Saudis? -------------- ¶5. (S/NF) Sajjad recounted Syrian concerns over Saudi behavior with respect to both Iraq and Lebanon. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani had told him that Saudi King Abdallah had publicly insulted PM Maliki at the opening of the January 18 Arab Economic Forum in Kuwait. Sajjad said the gregarious Talabani had embraced the Saudi King, and had spontaneously offered to host Abdallah at his villa in Iraq. King Abdallah had reportedly responded -- seriously and loudly enough to be heard around the room -- that he would never visit Iraq as long as Maliki was Prime Minister. Sajjad suggested that the Syrians would try to use the threat of Saudi support to militant Sunni groups in both Lebanon and Iraq as common ground upon which to build greater cooperation with the Maliki government. -------------- Positive Report on Meeting with U.S. Officials -------------- ¶6. (S/NF) As an aside, Sajjad commented that FM Muallim had written a "very positive" report to President Asad recounting his meeting with NEA Acting A/S Feltman and NSC Senior Director for Near East and North Africa Dan Shapiro. According to Sajjad, Acting A/S Feltman had successfully assuaged Syrian concerns stemming from his tenure as U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon that he held great personal animosity towards the Syrian government. Muallim, he said, described Acting A/S Feltman as a worthy interlocutor, finding him "professionally engaging, clever, and very well-informed." -------------- Comment -------------- ¶7. (S/NF) Sajjad once identified himself as the "real" Iraqi ambassador to Syria and, indeed, he is very well-connected with both the Syrian and Iraqi governments. His focus on Syrian-Iraqi counterterrorism (CT) cooperation is consistent with FM Muallim's observations to Acting A/S Feltman about potential trilateral (U.S./Iraqi/Syrian) CT cooperation. The Syrians may be taking the first steps in establishing a context for such a relationship. CONNELLY