SOMALI TALKS IN TURKEY: TANZANIA PROPOSES TO DEFER

C O N F I D E N T I A L DAR ES SALAAM 000869 SIPDIS AF/E FOR JTREADWELL, PFIERST E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/16/2019 TAGS: PREL ER SO TU TZ SUBJECT: SOMALI TALKS IN TURKEY: TANZANIA PROPOSES TO DEFER REF: A. A: SECSTATE 123692 ¶B. B: DAR ES SALAAM 516 Classified By: Ambassador Alfonso Lenhardt for reasons 1.4 (b/d) ¶1. (C) Summary. FM Membe, on receipt of ref a points from Ambassador Lenhardt, agreed to call the Turkish FM to defer a planned meeting involving the foreign ministers of Turkey, Tanzania, Eritrea and Somalia, which had been planned to take place in Ankara in January. Membe requested an update on the Djibouti Peace Process to share with President Kikwete. Membe said Tanzania's offer to train Somali troops remained on the table, if Somalia could offer a cross-clan list of trainees (and if the U.S. would contribute financially). End Summary. ¶2. (C) Describing the background of Tanzania's involvement in the proposed foreign ministers' meeting, Membe said there had been a hot debate during the July AU Summit over IGAD's proposal to impose sanctions on Eritrea for its support of Al-Shabaab. Membe related that after several hours of debate, during which the Eritrean delegation was booed down every time it tried to take the floor, President Kikwete suggested that Eritrea be given the opportunity to defend itself. After hearing the Eritrean side, Kikwete argued that it would be premature for the AU to sanction Eritrea without first sending a team to review the situation. Membe said the Eritrean FM visited Tanzania in August with documentation in defense of its contention that it was not supporting Al-Shabaab. The Eritrean FM told him that Tanzania "was the only country willing to listen." President Kikwete, after meeting the Eritrean FM, proposed that the AU convene a joint meeting with Eritrea, Somalia and IGAD. ¶3. (C) Membe said the Turkish FM approached him in New York in September and sought Tanzanian involvement in a meeting with the Eritrean and Somali FMs. His Turkish counterpart told him Tanzania was the only AU country interested in following the issue, thus Turkey wanted Tanzania involved in negotiations. The Turks planned for a meeting in December, subsequently pushed back to January in Ankara, with the intent to review issues in advance of the next AU Summit at the end of January. ¶4. (SBU) Ambassador Lenhardt noted our concern that a separate process could undermine progress through the Djibouti Peace Process (DPP),as well as our concerns about Eritrea's support for Al-Shabaab. ¶5. (C) On hearing our concerns, Membe immediately offered to call his Turkish counterpart to recommend deferring indefinitely the planned four-way meeting and to allow the DPP to reach its outcome. Membe requested us to provide a progress report on the DPP prior to the AU summit, so that he could relay it to President Kikwete. (Comment: Membe appeared to have little awareness of the DPP.) ¶6. (C) Membe told Ambassador Lenhardt Tanzania's offer to train one thousand Somali soldiers remained open. He said the TFG had never been able to provide a list of trainees from across clans. Tanzania wanted to avoid training troops from a single clan and in effect empowering a warlord. He added that if the TFG came up with a list of soldiers, Tanzania would look to the U.S. for a contribution to support the training. (Note: An earlier U.S. offer to support such training stalled in part because Tanzania did not obtain from the TFG a list of soldiers to be vetted. See ref b. End Note.) Membe also remarked that Tanzania had encouraged Nigeria, Senegal, Malawi and Ghana to send troops to Somalia. LENHARDT