INL A/S JOHNSON MEETINGS ON AFGHANISTAN AND

C O N F I D E N T I A L UNVIE VIENNA 000578

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/14/2019
TAGS: PGOV UN KCRM UNODC IR
SUBJECT: INL A/S JOHNSON MEETINGS ON AFGHANISTAN AND
RELATED REGIONAL COUNTERNARCOTICS EFFORTS

Classified By: AMBASSADOR G. DAVIES, REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D).

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SUMMARY
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1. (C) During a brief stopover in Vienna, INL Assistant
Secretary David Johnson met on December 9 with UN Office on
Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Executive Director Antonio Maria
Costa and with UNODC officials involved in regional and
bilateral counternarcotics (CN) work with Iran. Ambassador
Davies also hosted a lunch briefing for Vienna-based
Ambassadors on the new Afghanistan strategy and its relation
to ongoing CN efforts. The day,s discussions highlighted
the critical role of regional cooperation, including through
multilateral initiatives such as the Paris Pact, to CN work
in Afghanistan. UNODC officials noted Iran,s interest in
regional CN efforts relating to Afghanistan, with special
emphasis on its &Triangular Initiative8 which encompasses
Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. END SUMMARY

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AFGHANISTAN LUNCH
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2. (U) At a lunch hosted by Ambassador Davies and attended by
representatives from Afghanistan, Australia, Germany, India,
Italy, Japan, Norway, Pakistan, Spain and Turkey, Assistant
Secretary Johnson and Ambassador Davies moderated a lively
discussion on Afghanistan CN efforts. Assistant Secretary
Johnson noted President Obama,s clear goal of moving more
rapidly to help Afghan,s sustain themselves. He discussed
how U.S. counternarcotics (CN) efforts are becoming
increasingly focused on building the rule of law,
particularly in population centers. The role of the military
was growing in the areas of police training, and CN efforts
were being refocused with a greater emphasis on interdiction
vice eradication. Later in the lunch, Assistant Secretary
Johnson outlined two important lessons from work in the
Golden Triangle and elsewhere: that ungoverned territory is
our enemy and that interdiction is more effective when it is
closer to the source.


3. (U) Afghanistan Ambassador Dr. Abdul Shoogufan emphasized
that Afghanistan,s drug problems required joint efforts from
a number of countries. He praised the CN approach described
by Assistant Secretary Johnson, opining that a greater focus
on alternative development will help grow Afghanistan,s
agricultural sector. German Ambassador Rudiger Ludeking
commented on the downward movement of Afghanistan on the
Transparency International corruption index, and wondered if
our efforts were sustainable in such an environment.
Recently installed Ambassador Ramazan Bayer from Turkey
replied that in his experience, which included a posting in
Afghanistan some 30 years ago, the central government,
however corrupt, had limited influence and that the key to
sustainability was to focus on the provincial and local
levels.


4. (U) Indian Charge Dinesh Patniak questioned why the
spotlight of the international community was focused on the
porous borders of Afghanistan, as opposed to the borders of
the European Union, where technology and expertise is greater
but where the Europeans have failed to stem the tide of
heroin and opium to its citizens. Assistant Secretary
Johnson refuted the notion that Afghanistan and the region
would not face any drug problems if the U.S. and Europe
somehow halted their demand for Afghan drugs. He noted that
nearby countries like Iran are already major users of heroin
that can be linked to Afghanistan.


5. (U) Australian Ambassador Michael Potts noted the
challenge of interdiction, and argued for greater
intelligence sharing. Even in Australia, an island with no
porous land borders, it is difficult to interdict and almost
all of Australia,s notable seizures of contraband are based
on intelligence. Spanish DCM Santiago Martinez-Caro and
Turkey Ambassador Bayer seconded the importance of
intelligence sharing among neighboring and other countries.


6. (U) Japan Ambassador Takeshi Nakane announced that
Japan,s recent multi-billion dollar pledge to Afghanistan
will include contributions to UNODC for border control,
demand reduction and alternative development. He hopes

publicly to announce this contribution soon.

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MEETING WITH UNODC,S COSTA: AFRICA, AFGHANISTAN AND IRAN
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7. (U) During Assistant Secretary Johnson,s meeting with
UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa, Costa described
as &extraordinary8 his recent visit to the UN Security
Council to discuss drug trafficking and drug use in Africa.
His speech emphasized how the problems in East and West
Africa are &meeting in the middle,8 with growing criminal
and drug use activity in the ungoverned areas in between. He
saw firsthand in a recent visit to Africa how the drug
problem had spread, describing addicts carrying needles
&like one would carry pens.8 He thanked the U.S. for
Ambassador Rice,s strong statement of support during that
session. While in New York, he also met with UN,s
Peacekeeping Office and Political Affairs Office to discuss
increasing their information sharing and mutual support in
this area of the world. He hopes to receive some funding for
work in the region from Arab nations such as Libya and
Algeria. Costa also mentioned that the French, in their
future presidency of the Security Council, intend to conduct
sessions that will focus on other drug-prone problem regions,
such as Afghanistan, Iran, the Andes region and Myanmar.


8. (U) Costa then moved to the report on Afghan corruption
which his office is finalizing. UNODC is aiming to release
the report sometime in mid-January. Costa said the data will
be analyzed by geographic region, sector, and rural versus
urban. He cautioned that we must not use this very local
data (14,000 people surveyed in 4,000 villages) to make any
judgments about higher-level corruption. UNODC hopes to
develop a second report that would focus on higher-level
corruption, which is trickier to capture.


9. (U) Assistant Secretary Johnson requested UNODC to
identify additional criteria that they think would help
measure CN progress in Afghanistan. This would be useful as
we move away from our focus on eradication and poppy
cultivation. Sandeep Chawla, Director for Research at UNODC,
commented that it may be useful to look at the bigger picture
of trafficking flows. Andrea Mancini, a UNODC research
official, explained that UNODC was already testing a new
monitoring system at the provincial level that would look at
law enforcement, alternative livelihoods and other data.
Costa agreed that this would be worth pursuing.


10. (SBU) Costa provided his opinion on Iran,s upcoming
chairmanship of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND). He
feels that the Iranian Ambassador has been a &fair chair8
in the past, and would likely act accordingly for the CND.
He mentioned Iran,s fairly advanced demand reduction
activities, which belies their image. While they like to
blame the West for their problems, they are quietly beginning
to acknowledge the increase in heroin use by Iranians,
particularly in urban areas. Chawla said the Iranians are
still only providing minimal attention to the supply issue,
and that the supply data they produce does not have the
integrity to provide any useful pictures.


11. (U) Costa ended the meeting by informing Assistant
Secretary Johnson of the expansion of UNODC,s anti-piracy
work in Africa. He thanked the U.S. for its financial
support, and noted that they intend to expand their technical
assistance operations into Somalia itself, from their current
base in Kenya. UNODC will also takeover administration of
the new trust fund established for funding justice-related
technical assistance related to fighting piracy. UNDP had
been named administrator, but people were unhappy with
UNDP,s attention to the fund. He discussed this issue in
New York with Lynn Pascoe and they agreed that the fund will
&be moved to Vienna8 and administered by UNODC.

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WORKING WITH IRAN
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12.(C) Assistant Secretary Johnson met with Roberto Arbitrio,
Chief of the Executive Director,s Office Roberto, who
previously spent five years running UNODC,s office in
Tehran, and Andrea Mancini, a UNODC Research Officer, for a
briefing on UNODC,s programs in Iran and Iranian cooperation

on the counternarcotics issue. Arbitrio noted his belief
that even after the elections, Tehran remains interested in
cooperation on counternarcotics, but was sanguine that Iran
also will use the issue as a leverage point and could
withdraw cooperation if it feels the need to react to Western
actions in Afghanistan or elsewhere, calling this a policy of
&ambiguity.8 While we can expect that Iran will continue
to blame the West for the drugs coming out of Afghanistan and
even will accuse the West of actually facilitating the drug
problem, this does not mean that Iran is not interested in
engagement or committed to drug control, since Tehran takes
CN seriously given its internal drug use problems. Iran
wants to be recognized for these extensive efforts and to be
seen as a peer in combating drugs.

13.(C) In response to Johnson,s question about whether Iran
is doing anything to facilitate the transit of narcotics
through Iran, Arbitrio argued that most of the drugs transit
the Sistan va Baluchistan province, where Iran has little
control and is worried about stability and the growth of a
greater Baluch movement. Similarly, the border areas
elsewhere are dangerous and &no one knows what is happening
there,8 acknowledging the possibility that Iran or Iranians
could be involved to some degree. (Comment: Arbitrio has
told us elsewhere that he doubts that Tehran as a policy
would be facilitating the drug trade given the serious
problem Iran faces in combating trafficking, but he cannot
rule out that some officials on the borders are corrupt since
they are not well paid and operate in a part of the world
where corruption often runs rampant, and that elements of the
Iranian government could have different objectives. End
Comment)


14. (C) Looking forward to the Iranian presidency of the CND,
Arbitrio noted that Iran has not yet made its intentions
completely clear. Nevertheless, Iran has signaled that a
regional approach to Afghanistan is a priority, and this is
likely to be Iran,s focus. Arbitrio said that Iran,s
interactions at the last CND showed that it wants to be a
partner on development assistance to Afghanistan. He did not
specifically push for cooperation between the U.S. and Iran,
but again informed us of Iran,s interest in engagement
generally in CN matters with the West, including through
peer-to-peer discussions and engagement with the mini-Dublin
Group. Mancini added as encouragement that it was a major
step that Iran and the U.S. agreed on the same strategy on
counternarcotics through the Paris Pact.

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COMMENTS
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15. (U) The theme of the day was not surprisingly the need
for regional cooperation in our CN efforts, particularly
related to Afghanistan and in emerging hotspots such as
Africa. Costa highlighted the need for increasing
international attention and cooperation related to Africa,
and the challenge of generating interest and engagement among
regional players such as the Arab countries of North Africa,
even if only through financial support. END COMMENT
DAVIES