US embassy cable - 04ANKARA2465

C O N F I D E N T I A L ANKARA 002465 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
STATE FOR SA/FO - AMB. TAYLOR; JCS FOR J5 COL SCHRADER 
 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/03/2029 
TAGS: PREL, MARR, MOPS, TU, AF 
SUBJECT: AFGHANISTAN/TURKISH PRT: MFA/TGS MOVING FORWARD 
WITH TAKHAR 
 
REF: ANKARA 2293 
 
 
(U) Classified by PolMil Counselor Timothy A. Betts.  Reasons 
1.4 (b) and (d). 
 
 
1. (C) MFA DDG for NATO Affairs Fatih Ceylan informed 
PolMilCouns April 30 that MFA had just sent up for Foreign 
Minister Gul's approval the proposal to establish a PRT in 
Takhar.  Ceylan, reiterating what his colleague told us a 
week earlier (reftel), emphasized that Takhar was the 
unanimous recommendation of the interagency survey team 
Ankara had dispatched earlier in the month.  He was emphatic 
that Turkey would only consider a PRT in northern 
Afghanistan, and Takhar was the place.  If it was not 
possible to do it there, Turkey would likely not contribute a 
PRT to Afghanistan at all.  When pushed on this point, Ceylan 
allowed that if the Alliance offered Turkey Baghlan, it would 
seriously consider it, but "nowhere else," he declared. 
 
 
2. (C) PolMilCouns recalled that the survey team had received 
different signals from different entities when it was in 
Afghanistan, and asked whether the GOT had been consulting 
SHAPE and the PRT ESC in Kabul as it was formulating its 
recommendation.  Ceylan said Turkey's permrep was instructed 
to raise the proposal with SACEUR during the NAC's visit to 
Afghanistan last week, but Ankara had not yet received a 
report of that conversation.  Ceylan acknowledged that the 
German Defense Ministry asserts that Takhar is already 
covered by the German PRT in Konduz, but the German Foreign 
Ministry more candidly admits that the Konduz PRT is 
effective only within a radius of 40 kilometers of the PRT. 
Takhar is clearly beyond that area.  Ceylan said that MFA 
approached Gul as Deputy Prime Minister and expected to "make 
public at NATO" Turkey's PRT offer after Gul approves it.  He 
expected approval over the weekend, with Turkey pushing the 
proposal forward with both SHAPE and the PRT ESC as early as 
Monday, May 3. 
 
 
3. (U) Kabul minimize considered 
EDELMAN