EURASIA ECONOMIC SUMMIT ORGANIZERS REQUEST

UNCLAS ISTANBUL 000060 SIPDIS DEPT PLEASE PASS USTR E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ECON EINV ETRD EFIN PGOV PREL TU SUBJECT: EURASIA ECONOMIC SUMMIT ORGANIZERS REQUEST HIGH-LEVEL USG SPEAKER REF: 1/26/2010 AMODEO-TAYLOR-GILMAN E-MAIL ¶1. Istanbul Consul General (CG) met recently with Akkan Suver, President of the Marmara Foundation which organizes the annual Eurasia Economic Summit in Istanbul. Suver invited the CG to attend this year's summit, which is scheduled for May 5-6, and asked if the U.S. government would be willing to send a high-level official to speak at this year's summit. Suver said that he was certain that Minister of Foreign Trade Caglayan, who is one of the Turkish Co-chairs of the Framework for Strategic Economic and Commercial Cooperation (FSECC),would be happy to extend an invitation to anyone Washington recommended. ¶2. The event will be the 13th summit organized by the Marmara Foundation, whose aim is to explore ways of enhancing relations between the European Union, countries of Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. According to Suver, the main themes of the upcoming summit will be energy, economy, and intercultural dialogue, environment and education. Last year's summit was attended by 110 high-level dignitaries from 41 different countries including the Presidents of Croatia and Kosovo. Former presidents, vice-premiers, ministers, deputies, representatives of national, regional and international organizations and from the world business community also attended. Turkish officials included the Speaker of the Grand National Assembly and Ministers of Energy and Natural Resources, and Culture and Tourism. Information on last year's summit is available at www.maramargrubu.org/detailedprogram.pdf. Post has pouched materials on last year's event to EUR/SE. ¶3. ACTION REQUEST: Please advise of Washington agencies' interest in this year's summit, and how we should respond to the Marmara Foundation. WIENER