IRAN/NARCOTICS: ENGAGING IRAN ON COUNTER-NARCOTIC ISSUES IN TURKEY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ISTANBUL 000137



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E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/10/2019

TAGS: PREL, PGOV, PINS, SNAR, TU, IR

SUBJECT: IRAN/NARCOTICS: ENGAGING IRAN ON COUNTER-NARCOTIC

ISSUES IN TURKEY



REF: (A) 08 IRPO DUBAI 56 (B) ISTANBUL 47 (C) 3/30/09

DCM SILLIMAN -- P/SAGSWA/NEA EMAIL AND DEA

MEMO (NOTAL) (D) UNVIE 152



Classified By: ConGen Istanbul DPO Sandra Oudkirk; Reason 1.5 (d)



1. (C) Summary: Following up on ref C email conveying DEA

Turkey's ideas on engaging Iran on counter-narcotic (CN)

issues in Turkey, we met with the UN Office of Drug Control

(UNODC) in Ankara and with a former Iranian MFA Director

General working for the D8 in Istanbul to solicit their

views. Both assessed that a carefully crafted offer of

counter-narcotic training or information-sharing from the USG

would be welcomed in Tehran. Both highlighted the benefits

of initially working through a third party like UNODC. The

UNODC official suggested that Turkey's law enforcement

training academy for counter-narcotics, TADOC, would be a

good facility if such training took place in Turkey as it

already has an extensive CN curriculum that would be easy to

modify to accommodate the challenges of a US-Iran joint

training effort, as well as a proven track record in training

to Iranian CN officers. Comment: If a USG decision is made

to pursue such engagement, both ref C's DEA ideas and UNODC's

suggestion of working through TADOC to offer joint training

and/or information-sharing would be worthwhile options to

consider. End summary and comment.



2. (SBU) Ref C conveyed to the Department DEA Turkey's ideas

on pursuing direct, bilateral engagement with Iran on CN

issues in Turkey. DEA Turkey already participates in Drug

Liaison Officer (DLO) forum in which Iran's DLO occasionally

participates. DEA's ideas include jointly targeting West

African smuggling groups, an issue of interest to Iran.



3. (SBU) Following ref C, ConGen Istanbul Iran Watcher and

Embassy Ankara ECON officer met April 2 with Yasemin Kaya,

the national project officer for the UN Office of Drug

Control (UNODC) In Ankara, to discuss UNODC's efforts in

Turkey and the region. Kaya has been UNODC's project officer

in Turkey since 2003.



Turkey as a regional CN Training Hub

--------------



4. (SBU) Kaya explained that UNODC Turkey's primary role is

to offer training through the GOT's International Academy

Against Drugs and Organized Crime (TADOC),a regional law

enforcement training center in Ankara. Since 2000, UNODC has

helped organize counter-narcotics training classes at TADOC

for over 7,000 law enforcement officers from 25 countries,

including all Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) members

(Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan,

Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan),

several Balkan states, Georgia, and others. The purpose of

such training is to help those states develop their own

training capacity and establish their own training centers.



5. (SBU) According to Kaya, Iranian counter-narcotics police

have received training in the past at TADOC, an average of

about 20 officers a year for the past several years.

Moreover, a contingent of Afghan counter-narcotic officers is

currently at TADOC, she noted.



6. (SBU) She explained that most of the countries in the

region are now beginning to develop enough capacity to run

their own training academies; TADOC management is providing

advisory services to some of those countries as they set up

their training operations. Meanwhile, TADOC has re-focused

its efforts towards offering training primarily for Turkey's

own national police and gendarmerie. Since 2006, TADOC has

offered courses to help Turkey's rurally-deployed gendarmerie

build counter-narcotic capacity, especially along Turkey's

borders with Iran, Iraq, and Syria. UNODC has supported this

emphasis on training for units in rural border areas because

those are the areas used by traffickers to transit drugs,

largely from Iran. She added that a counter-narcotic squad

from Manchester, United Kingdom, was currently working with

gendarmerie and border police units on Turkey's border with

Iran, under TADOC auspices.



Limits to Turkey-Iran CN Cooperation

--------------



7. (C) Cooperation between Turkish and Iranian border police

is neither easy nor particularly effective, Kaya asserted.

The border forces speak different languages, have different

capabilities, use different methods, and enforce different

laws. UNODC Turkey only has authority to offer border



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training on the Turkish side of the border, and cannot offer

assistance in cross-border exercises. Training on the

Iranian side would need to come from UNODC's office in Iran,

Kaya explained.



8. (C) Asked about Turkey-Iran information-sharing on

narcotics cases, Kaya told us that "Turkey and Iran could

easily share narcotics law enforcement information directly

if they wanted to" but they do so only infrequently.

According to Kaya, Iran has "a good drug enforcement liaison

officer in Turkey, very professional." But UNODC is not

aware of Iran and Turkey sharing drug seizure or other

operational counter-narcotics information on a regular basis.

Any operational successes on the Turkey-Iran border, she

added, are ad hoc, and the result of good personal relations

between individual Turkish and Iranian police officers,

rather than the result of any institutionalized cooperation.



Possibilities for regional operational cooperation

--------------



9. (C) We asked whether the successful March 8

UNODC-assisted joint operation by "Triangle Initiative"

member states' (Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan) law enforcement

services offered a template that could guide Turkish-Iranian

cooperation. Kaya noted that UNODC Turkey played a part in

facilitating a successful regional Operation Cohesion in

2006-7, which targeted the growing transit through Turkey of

heroin precursor acetic anhydride. According to Kaya,

Project Cohesion operations in Turkey and the region involved

five target countries (though not Iran) and five "mentor"

countries (including the USG, led by DEA) in effective joint

information-sharing and operations. Kaya cautioned that

although Turkey may be interested in further regional

operations similar to Operation Cohesion, possibly including

Iran, it would do so only as a mentor or lead partner. Even

in such a case, Kaya believes from her contacts with Turkish

police that Turkey does not want to participate in any joint

counter-narcotic operations inside Iran.



10. (C) Kaya described UNODC's support for training of

Turkish gendarmes along the Turkey-Iran border as a potential

model for the Iranian side. UNODC Turkey is not fully

briefed on Iranian law enforcement's CN capacities, she

admitted, so any involvement of UNODC Turkey to facilitate

Turkey-Iran cooperation or recommend models for UNODC

training inside Iran would also require the involvement of

UNODC Iran and UNODC Headquarters in Vienna.



11. (C) Kaya also suggested that if the USG decides to

pursue counter-narcotic cooperation with Iran in Turkey,

another option would be for the USG to fund a specific

training course at TADOC. For example, the USG could fund a

bilateral or trilateral (e.g., US, Turkey, and Iran) training

course for law enforcement officers on drug interdiction at

the border, on or the latest drug detection equipment and

techniques.



12. (C) If Iran is not prepared to participate in such

training openly with the USG, Kaya suggested that UNODC could

extend the invitation through the ECO office in Tehran,

describing the offer as an ECO training course but to which

UNODC only invites Turkey and Iran to participate, along with

USG participants. Such an arrangement would allow UNODC to

work through ECO's Iran office rather than directly with

Iran's Drug Control Headquarters. Under this scenario, the

USG could still provide trainers at TADOC, though she felt

that U.S., Turkish, and Iranian police should be trained

side-by-side, as both Turkey and Iran tend to believe that

they have just as much (or more) counter-narcotic experience

as USG law enforcement agencies. If USG is willing to fund a

training component, Kaya believes that UNODC would be willing

to work closely with State and DEA to help tailor a training

module the way the USG wants it, noting that it usually takes

several months to devise a course curriculum. Kaya pledged

to stay in contact with Embassy Ankara and ConGen Istanbul on

such an idea if the USG is interested.



A former Iranian MFA DG's advice

--------------



13. (C) In an April 3 meeting in Istanbul, former Iranian

MFA Director General and current D8 Director Kia Tabatabaee

(ref B, please protect),told ConGen's Iran Watcher that an

offer from the USG of counter-narcotic cooperation with Iran

would seen positively in Iran (other topics reported septel).

"It is an area of engagement that can easily be politically

justified and easily defended inside Iran." In the event



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such a decision is made, he strongly recommended pursuing

such engagement multilaterally rather than bilaterally or

trilaterally, for example asking a UN agency like UNODC ("but

not a regional body like the D8 or ECO; neither is capable of

handling this") to make the initial offer. Moreover, such an

offer would receive a warmer reception in Tehran if it

includes clear and tangible benefits to Iran. "Don't just

offer Iran to come to the table to talk about narcotics;

offer real humanitarian assistance or technical cooperation."



14. (C) Asked his views of whether Turkish or other regional

participation would be seen in Iran as safer than bilateral

cooperation, Tabatabaee agreed, recommending that it would be

"better to work through Turkey than through Afghanistan or

Pakistan in one important sense: Iran respects Turkey and

sees Turkey under the AKP as somewhat independent of the USG,

whereas it feels more competitive regarding the U.S.'s

relations with Karzai. Iran does not trust Karzai or

(Pakistani President) Zardari as much as it trusts Erdogan

and Turkey. Iran doesn't trust Turkey alot, but it trusts

Turkey more than it trusts its eastern neighbors." On the

other hand, he countered, it is along the Iran-Afghanistan

border where Iran needs the most help, especially training

and equipment to enhance its detection and interdiction

capabilities.



15. (C) Tabatabee further advised that Iran would respond

better to being trained side-by-side with U.S. police, rather

than being trained by U.S. police, "which Iran would see as

being lectured to by the U.S., a redline." He suggested that

the best scenario would involve training offered by the UN

itself, or by an acceptable, neutral third party's police

force -- the Swiss, for example -- teaching a training course

to both sides. Alternatively, Turkey could host a three-way

"narcotics information exchange" in which US, Turkish, and

Iranian police treat each other as equals, both giving and

receiving insights, information, and advice from each other.

"Just stay away from creating an image of US police lecturing

Iranian police. How you handle the arrangement and the

optics is important."



Comment

--------------



16. (C) Both the UNODC representative and the former Iranian

MFA DG assessed that a carefully crafted offer of

counter-narcotic training, cooperation and/or

information-sharing from the USG to Iran, especially if made

through a third party like UNODC, and possibly involving

Turkey's participation, would be both feasible and welcomed

by Iran. UNODC Turkey's idea of using the TADOC training

facility has a number of practical benefits, including a CN

curriculum that would be easy to modify to accommodate the

unique challenges of a US-Iran CN training course, as well as

a proven track record in already providing training to

Iranian CN officers. Comment: If a USG decision is made to

pursue such engagement, both ref C's DEA ideas and UNODC's

suggestion of working through TADOC to offer joint training

and/or information-sharing at TADOC would be worthwhile

options to consider.

Wiener