US embassy cable - 04ANKARA4590

C O N F I D E N T I A L ANKARA 004590 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/09/2014 
TAGS: PREL, MOPS, TU, BK 
SUBJECT: SFOR TRANSITION: TURKS CONCERNED THAT EUROPEAN 
UNION MAY SEEK TO EXCLUDE TURKEY FROM COMMAND HQ, RAISE 
CYPRIOT AND MALTESE ATTENDANCE AT NATO/EU PLANNING MEETINGS 
 
 
Classified By: DCM Robert S. Deutsch for reasons 1.5 (b) and (d). 
 
1. (C) PolMilOff met Aug. 10 with Col. Halit Yilmaz, Chief of 
TGS's NATO Operations Branch office.  Yilmaz reported that 
Turkey is committed to remain in SFOR at its current (one 
battalion) level after SFOR becomes an EU operation, and said 
he believes that the EU wants Turkey to stay.  However, he 
expressed two concerns surrounding this transition.  First, 
he had heard of "reports circulating around Brussels" that 
the EU may seek to exclude non-EU members from both the 
general SFOR HQ and the regional command HQs.  This would, 
warned Yilmaz, "be a direct violation of Berlin-plus" and 
have serious consequences for Turkey's participation.  Yilmaz 
added that Turkey was attending an SFOR-North "mini force 
generating conference" Aug. 11 in Helsinki (he said the Finns 
will command the north), and said that if the EU were to make 
a move toward excluding the Turks from HQs, this would come 
at the mission-wide conference planned for September.  The 
Turks intend to offer personnel for both the mission-wide and 
northern SFOR HQs.  PolMilOff responded that we would monitor 
this issue. 
 
2. (C) Yilmaz cited a second concern, one that MFA Deputy 
Director General Fatih Ceylan had also raised with 
PolMilCouns on July 26.  The Turks are concerned that Malta 
and Cyprus, who have apparently not signed NATO security 
agreements, will participate in NATO/EU planning meetings. 
Both Ceylan and Yilmaz made the point that Cyprus was a 
particular problem given the failure of the April referendum, 
and that Turkey cannot deal with the GOC as if it were a 
representative of the entire island. 
 
3. (C) Comment: While the EU would be short-sighted in 
excluding the Turks from SFOR HQs, we are uncertain if the EU 
would be outside their rights to do so.  While the spirit may 
be clear, the relevant documents--Annex II of the October 
2002 EU Council conclusions (the implementing document for 
the EU's agreement with Turkey on ESDP) and the Dec. 16, 2002 
EU-NATO Declaration on ESDP--leave room for interpretation. 
The Turks have told us repeatedly that they want to 
participate in the EU successor to SFOR, but exclusion from 
the operation's HQ would bode ill for this participation. 
End comment. 
EDELMAN