MEETING WITH NEW TURKISH COUNTER TERRORISM

UNCLAS USUN NEW YORK 000022 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PTER ETTC KTFN UNSC SUBJECT: MEETING WITH NEW TURKISH COUNTER TERRORISM COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN REF: A. STATE 03589 ¶B. STATE 03940 ¶1. SUMMARY: Turkey, the new chairman of the UN Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) hosted an informal meeting at its mission on January 14, 2010, to outline its main objectives for its 2010 chairmanship and to exchange views with other committee members on the way forward. These priorities are: to get the CTC to spend less time on technical and procedural and more on substantive issues; to increase the visibility of the CTC work both in and outside of New York; to stimulate more dialogue between the committee and UN member states; and to make the CTC more transparent. Turkey then enumerated a number of proposals in each of these areas for the CTC to consider. There was widespread support among committee members for the proposed new approach, although there are some different views on the specific Turkish ideas which will need to be sorted out in the next few weeks. Drawing on REFTEL, USDEL emphasized that it shared Turkey objectives and was interested in working with committee members to make its work more relevant to national counterterrorism efforts, more strategic in its approach, and less focused on what the UK and France referred to as the unnecessary Micro-management Of CTED's work. Delegations generally welcomed the US proposals and praised the quality of CTED's work, noting the dramatic improvements that have been made under the leadership of current Executive Director, Mike Smith. There was consensus that the time was right to transform the relationship between the committee and CTED. (Comment: Although the initial reaction to USDEL points was positive, continued close cooperation among the P3 and with the chair, increased dialogue with the Russians and Chinese, and more outreach to the elected members will be critical to realizing our policy objectives in the committee. End Comment) END SUMMARY More substance and less process ¶1. Committee members agree that the CTC procedures require streamlining so that the CTED can spend more time working directly with countries in capitals and less time servicing and reporting proforma exercises to the committee. For example, there was consensus that the existing procedures for CTC review/approval of the CTED Preliminary implementation Assessments (PIAs),requests for travel, and reports on the status of the preparation of CTED visits need revision. The chair, for example, proposed having the committee adopt the PIAs through silence procedure, following consideration by the relevant sub-committee. Given that most of the work on the PIAs is already done by the sub-committees (and not the committee),many CTC members (including the P3) favored a more far-reaching change: the PIAs would still be circulated to all committee members for review, but a sub-committee should only meet to review a specific PIA when either a committee member or the CTED requests one. Joining with the US, the UK and France question the value-added by the current process for approving the PIAs, given the document's technical nature and the fact that committee members are diplomats rather than CT experts. Russia remained largely silent throughout the meeting. However, most committee members (including Austria, Brazil, China, and Mexico), either during or on the margins of the meeting, agreed that efforts should be made to depoliticize (to the extent possible) this process by keeping the PIAs as largely internal CTED working documents. The general view was that this will make them more useful tools for dialoguing with member states. (Note: Speaking privately to USDEL after the meeting, Turkey said it agreed with our position on this and will work to persuade others, although no delegation spoke out against the P3 position at the meeting. End note.) ¶2. There was consensus surrounding both the need for the CTC to have more substantive discussions, either thematic or regionally-focused, and for them to conclude with concrete CTC recommendations for action by the committee, CTED, and/or UN member states. It was also agreed that the level of input and interest from CTC capitals in the work of the committee will need to increase in order for this to happen These meetings could be devoted to highlighting and addressing some of the concrete challenges countries are facing in implementing UNSCR 1373 and some of the best practices that have been developed to overcome them. ¶3. Delegations also welcomed the US proposal to have the analysis and recommendations in the Global Implementation Survey serve as a springboard for such discussions both in the committee and for CTED ongoing engagement with regional organizations. The US idea for using the CTC as a platform to bring together member state practitioners and experts in a relevant area to share practical experiences, challenges, and best practices was also well received. (Note: USDEL spoke off-line to Mike Smith about the idea of organizing such a meeting involving national prosecutors with experience in trying high-profile terrorism cases in national courts. Smith thinks such an initiative would be useful, particularly insofar as it could be a first step to building an informal network of CT prosecutors from around the world. End Note). Raising awareness and increasing transparency/visibility of the work of the CTC, and broadening support for implementation of UNSCR 1373 ¶4. Delegations voiced their support for these goals and put forward a number of different proposals aimed at realizing them. For example, among other things, the chair proposed a) more visits by the CTC chair to international conferences. (Note: Rather than simply having the CTC chair participate in more international conferences (where the value-added of such participation is questionable),USDEL proposed having the chair (or his designee) travel to specific countries or a region to deliver a political message from the CTC where implementation problems due to lack of political will have been identified. End Note); b) including one committee member on CTED assessment visits (with the consent of the country being visited) (Note: A number of delegations, including USDEL, UK, and France, questioned the efficacy of such a proposal that would mix the political (CTC) with the technical (CTED) and thus might hinder the dialogue between CTED and the national experts. End Note); c) more frequent briefings of the wider UN membership by the chair/Mike Smith (Note: There was broad support for the US proposal for the CTC to follow the precedent set by the 1540 Committee and hold a meeting open to the wider membership and regional organizations to review global efforts to implement UNSCR 1373 over the past eight-plus years. End Note); d) improving the quality of the CTED website to make it more user friendly; and e) more CTED-led thematic presentations to the wider membership. ¶5. With respect to this last proposal, the point was made by a number of countries (e.g., UK, France, Austria, Mexico, and the US) that CTED thematic briefings should, whenever possible, a) include the other relevant CTITF entities and b) be open to the wider membership. It was suggested that although there might be occasions when the CTC chair may need to call a meeting of the CTC to discuss specific concrete follow up to a thematic discussion, concerted efforts should be made to expose the wider membership to these thematic presentations given the global nature of UNSCR 1373 and the importance of having CTED extend its reach beyond the 15 members of the CTC. The CTC Work Program ¶6. Rather than simply adopting the usual CTC work program for the coming six months, a number of committee members including China, France, the UK, and the US, suggested that the new document reflect in general terms the new strategic, more substantive direction that the committees appears to want to head based on the January 14 meeting. Rather than being too detailed, the sense was that the document should provide the committee with the necessary flexibility to organize a variety of substantive, concrete initiatives and to respond as needed to a particular terrorist incident or threat. ¶7. In the context of adopting the work program for the first half of 2010, Turkey reminded committee members that they will need to decide whether and where to organize the 6th Special CTC Meeting for International, Regional, and Sub-Regional Organizations. The US, joined by France and the UK, questioned whether these sorts of meetings add value and voiced support for more regional and subregional CTED initiatives aimed at national-level practitioners and experts. Although Russia has traditionally been the main proponent of convening the 6th Special Meeting, it remained silent during this discussion. Turkey intends to raise this issue for discussion at an upcoming meeting of the committee. 1566 Working Group ¶8. As chair of the CTC, Turkey has also assumed the chairmanship of the working group established pursuant to UNSCR 1566, which was adopted following the terrorist attacks in Beslan, Russia (September 2004). (Note: The working group was charged with looking into the possibility of a) developing a UN terrorist list that extended beyond just Al-Qaida and the Taliban and b) establishing a UN fund to provide compensation to victims of terrorism. Unable to reach consensus on either of these sensitive issues, the working group has not met for three years. End Note.) Turkey informed the CTC members that it intends to organize a meeting of the 1566 Working Group to receive a briefing from the CTITF working group on victims of terrorism, with a view to seeing whether there is anything useful that the 1566 Working Group might be able to contribute going forward. Without taking a position on the issue, USDEL commented that the 1566 Working Group was established prior to the creation of the CTITF and predates the CTITF's impressive work on victims issues. Therefore, delegations should consider whether there would be any value added in having the 1566 Working Group take up these issues again. RICE