SEEKING PROGRESS IN U.S.-TURKISH COOPERATION IN

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KABUL 000656

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR SRAP, SCA/FO, SCA/A, EUR/RPM, INR/B
STATE PASS USAID FOR ASIA/SCAA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/21/2020
TAGS: PRE EAI TU AF
SUBJECT: SEEKING PROGRESS IN U.S.-TURKISH COOPERATION IN
AFGHANISTAN

Classified By: Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry for Reasons 1.4(b,d)


1. (C) SUMMARY: Turkish Ambassador to Kabul Basat Ozturk
told Ambassador February 6 that Turkey wants closer
cooperation with the U.S. in development projects, including
what it hopes will be a marquee project to refurbish Kabul's
largest public hospital. Ambassador Eikenberry agreed that
we should explore more collaboration on development projects,
and USAID will explore the hospital option. However, to be
most effective, the Ambassadors agreed that we should
prioritize our work and focus on a few key projects first.
Turkish police training in Wardak has been effective and
Ankara wants to do more, including hosting 3-4,000 Afghan
National Police at a training site in Turkey. Turkey is
impatient to move ahead in what Ozturk said would be a matter
of weeks with setting up its second Provincial Reconstruction
Team (PRT),in Jowzsjan Province, regardless of unresolved
differences with the Swedes and Germans over maintenance of
provincial security. Ankara is carefully courting greater
Indian involvement in Afghanistan. Cultural and historic
affinities here do lend Turkey advantages in Afghanistan, but
its results in Wardak Province have been mixed. On-going
differences with allies and partners in the north at this
time over the proposed Jowzsjan PRT are not helpful.
Ambassador Ozturk has great ambitions for Afghanistan and
greater US-Turkish cooperation on the ground. We support
these goals, but given the relative lack of Turkish capacity
here will need to work carefully with Ozturk to ensure work
is prioritized and consistent with an Afghan-led agenda. END
SUMMARY AND COMMENT.

TURKEY AS LONG-TERM, STRATEGIC PARTNER IN AFGHANISTAN
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2. (U) Ozturk was accompanied by Turkish Wardak aid program
(TIKA) Coordinator Mikail Tasdemir, Wardak PRT Head Turker
Ari, Mazar-e-Sharif Consul General Ozgun Arman, and DCM Onur
Katmerci for a working lunch hosted by Ambassador. Joining
Ambassador were AID Mission Director, Deputy CDDEA, POLCOUNS,
POL-MIL COUNS, INL/NAS Director, and ECON and IPA reps.


3. (C) Ozturk explained that Turkey's interest in Afghanistan
is long-term, founded on historic ties, and based on Turkey's
self-interest in the region. Unlike some other NATO allies
who may feel an obligation to have a presence in Afghanistan
and who are "counting the days" until they can withdraw,
Ozturk asserted, Turkey's own interests in the region will
keep it engaged in development programs for many years to
come. Its contributions can be invaluable, Ozturk claimed,
because Turks are "in touch with the people" of Afghanistan,
and the Turkish people support the work being done by its PRT
in Wardak.


4. (C) U.S.-Turkish bilateral consultations should be based
on strategic assessments; not all of our allies have the
strategic sense or ability to do this, Ozturk told us. In
organizing the Istanbul meeting on Afghanistan last month,
Turkey had wanted to invite India (until Pakistan objected)
because Turkey believes India must have a greater role in
assisting Afghanistan. Underscoring the historic
significance of President Gul's visit to New Delhi beginning
February 7 in what he said is the first state visit ever by a
Turkish president to India, Ozturk revealed that Turkey is
actively courting additional "quiet" Indian development
assistance in Afghanistan to fill an important regional gap.
Turkey will push for Indian participation in future
multilateral meetings. Additional Indian aid must have
minimum visibility, however, in order to avoid
misinterpretation by Pakistan, said Ozturk. He added that
Turkey views India as a source of stability in the region,
while Pakistan is a "state in trouble" in need of
"psychological help." Ultimately, stability in Afghanistan
will require harmony between the two.

COOPERATION ON "MODEL PROJECTS"
--------------


5. (C) Turkey believes current national Afghan development
plans are inadequate in the areas of infrastructure,
transport, and particularly in education and health care.
Ozturk noted that discussion of health care needs had
dominated the recent meeting between Presidents Karzai and
Gul in Istanbul. Ozturk urged closer cooperation between
Turkey and the U.S. on development projects, and proposed
that respective Embassy staffs meet on a monthly basis to
review specific "model projects" on which we might
collaborate. Ambassador Eikenberry agreed that we should
cooperate more, and suggested that a short list of specific
joint projects be developed, and we should "make them work

KABUL 00000656 002 OF 003


and make them symbolic." Ambassador Eikenberry suggested
Turkey participate in a planned Donors meeting on development
plans for the city of Kabul. Especially in light of the
upcoming Kabul Conference, Ozturk confirmed Turkey's interest
in providing aid to the capital, and noted that with Turkey
currently in command of Regional Command for the capital
region, he plans to seize the moment to meet with the new
Kabul mayor, Engineer Mohammad Yunus Nowandish, in the near
future. Turkey had also promised President Karzai it would
undertake the asphalting of some major roads in Kabul.


6. (C) In what it hopes will be a major showcase project in
Kabul, Ozturk said Turkey plans to refurbish and modernize
Kabul's 400-bed Jamhuriat Hospital. The capital's largest
public hospital was built with Chinese funding, but it is
hardly functional as the Chinese did not provide staff or
high-quality equipment to run it. The Turkish Ministry of
Health has made an assessment, plans to renovate the
building, and intends bring Turkish physicians, nurses, and
technical staff on a rotating basis to work and live there.
Turkey hopes to turn the facility into a teaching hospital
and turn it over gradually within a 4-5 year period to a
primarily Afghan medical staff. Turkey is seeking a partner
in this project. Ambassador suggested a good model for this
project is the Afghan National Army hospital in Kabul,
Afghanistan's best hospital, where 40-50 U.S. military
physicians and medical staff work along side Afghan Army
staff as teachers and mentors. The Ambassador offered
assistance, if needed, in linking Ozturk's staff with U.S.
military medical personnel for an exchange of lessons
learned/best practices.

AFGHAN POLICE TRAINING IN TURKEY ) IF EUROPEANS PAY
-------------- ---


7. (C) Ozturk said that Turkey is pleased with the results of
its police training efforts to date. Turkey is currently
teaching the MOI-approved Basic 8-Week Afghan National Police
(ANP) curriculum at the Turkish Training Center in Maidan
Shahr/Wardak, and is prepared to do more. Ozturk explained
that Turkey is working on a plan to host 3-4,000 Afghan
National Police at a police training center in Turkey. This
would, Ozturk remarked, be in line with the goals of Interior
Minister Atmar, who had spoken, most recently at the February
4-5 NATO Defense Ministerial in Istanbul, of the need to send
Afghan National Police outside Afghan given the shortage of
training slots in Afghanistan. Turkey could host Afghan
trainees for a one-year course (that usually takes two years)
in advanced police training. Turkey would supply the
dedicated facility, the firing ranges, the labs, and other
installations. The challenge, Ozturk continued, would be
finding a donor to pay additional expenses such as housing,
health care, food, and translators. He noted that since
EUPOL had failed to meet its target for the past two years,
and currently filled only 272 of its targeted 400 slots in
Afghanistan, he felt it would be appropriate to ask European
nations to pick up these expenses. Separately, Ozturk
lamented that EUPOL had focused on what he characterized as
"Turkey-bashing" (presumably a reference to
EUPOL/Afghanistan,s failure to conclude a bilateral security
agreement with Turkey) rather than owning up to the
organization's own failure to meet the personnel targets it
had set.

JOWZSJAN PRT: DAMN THE TORPEDOES
--------------


8. (C) Turkey is prepared to move forward in a matter of
weeks with establishing its second PRT in Afghanistan in
northern Jowzsjan Province, Ozturk stated, with or without
German and Swedish support on provincial security
arrangements. "Time for talking is over," and final
decisions need to be made, he said, adding that Turkey had
been "cheated" in recent discussions on security cooperation
in Berlin, and regards as unacceptable the German suggestion
that its proposed Jowzsjan facility be designated a
"provincial advisory reconstruction team." Turkey will model
its new PRT after Wardak, but Jowzsjan may be slightly
larger, (there are 131 Turks in Wardak),with almost half the
contingent comprised of civilians. Turkish security forces
will provide protection for the PRT and its staff, and will
be able to draw on Turkish helicopter assets under Regional
Command-Capital for medevac capability, but will not patrol
in Jowzsjan (something Ozturk claimed neither the Germans or
the Swedes do) nor engage in any offensive military action.
Turkey will not ask for security assistance, unless, Ozturk
said, it is forced to request a quick reaction force from
ISAF in the event of a major attack, a contingency he clearly
felt unlikely in the far north.

KABUL 00000656 003 OF 003




9. (C) Jowzsjan is impoverished and lacking insurgents,
Ozturk emphasized, and there is much development work Turkey
can contribute there. Health care, road building, education
are the main kinds of projects Turkey expects to undertake in
the province. Turkey hopes to open schools for girls, offer
police training, and provide additional Operational Mentoring
and Liaison Teams (OMLETs) in Jowzsjan. Other projects under
consideration are a vocational training center linked to an
industrial park, and irrigation system improvements. Ozturk
insisted that ethnic connections in the north were not
driving Turkey's interest in establishing its new PRT in
Jowzsjan.


10. (C) Comment: Ambassador Ozturk made clear his country's
ambitions for a more stable and secure, developed and
prosperous Afghanistan. We share these goals, together with
the goal of seeing greater US-Turkey partnership on the
ground. In addition to the proposed cooperation on the
hospital in Kabul, we are also working through the Turkish
PRT in Wardak and at the Embassy to explore ways to support
Turkish efforts to build capacity in Afghanistan's marble
industry. A USAID-hosted marble seminar in Herat later this
month was rescheduled to avoid conflicting with a marble
seminar in Turkey that would have prevented 10 Turkish
companies from joining the Afghan event. But as we build our
partnership, we must work with the Turks to ensure we do not
exceed their own capacity on the ground. (This lunch, for
example, required Turkish participants from Wardak and Mazar,
as the Embassy's own staff is very small and junior.) Even
our Embassy pays high transaction costs to plan and implement
projects with other donors. We must, in the main, remain
focused on our key partner, Afghanistan, especially at a time
when our strategy calls for rapid progress on the ground.

Eikenberry