US embassy cable - 05VIENNA262

Disclaimer: This site has been first put up 15 years ago. Since then I would probably do a couple things differently, but because I've noticed this site had been linked from news outlets, PhD theses and peer rewieved papers and because I really hate the concept of "digital dark age" I've decided to put it back up. There's no chance it can produce any harm now.

AUSTRIA PLANS POSITIVE STATEMENT ON IRAQ ELECTIONS

Identifier: 05VIENNA262
Wikileaks: View 05VIENNA262 at Wikileaks.org
Origin: Embassy Vienna
Created: 2005-01-28 13:05:00
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Tags: PGOV PREL IZ AU
Redacted: This cable was not redacted by Wikileaks.
This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

UNCLAS VIENNA 000262 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
STATE FOR EUR/AGS - VIKMANIS-KELLER 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, IZ, AU 
SUBJECT: AUSTRIA PLANS POSITIVE STATEMENT ON IRAQ ELECTIONS 
 
REF: A. (A) STATE 12610 
 
     B. (B) STATE 12757 
     C. (C) STATE 14649 
 
This cable is Sensitive but Unclassified.  Please treat 
accordingly. 
 
1.  (SBU) At a January 28 meeting, Foreign Ministry Middle 
East director (assistant secretary-equivalent) Ralph Scheide 
told EconPolCouns that Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik would 
issue a positive statement Monday, January 31 on the Iraq 
elections.  Scheide's draft (which the Foreign Minister had 
not yet approved) congratulates the Iraqi people for their 
historic achievement in holding elections, notes the need to 
overcome anti-democratic violence, and discusses further 
assistance to Iraq.  Scheide said the EU planned to make its 
own announcement along similar lines on Monday. 
 
2.  (SBU) The draft Austrian statement notes that Austria has 
organized a special program to train ten Iraqi diplomats at 
Austria's Diplomatic Academy.  Scheide said the program 
begins at the end of January and runs for two months. 
Austria will cover all the costs of the course, which amount 
to some 100,000 euros, and will not seek co-funding or 
reimbursement (as it would normally do for foreign students). 
 
3.  (SBU) Scheide also told us that an Austrian will observe 
absentee voting in Amman.  The observer is an Interior 
Ministry official at Austria's Embassy in Amman. 
 
4.  (SBU) Austrian firms have begun to engage in Iraq, 
Scheide said.  Austrian-Iraqi trade had expanded by 170 
percent in the past year, albeit from a low baseline. 
However, Austrian firms were not anxious for publicity at 
this point, fearing that a higher profile would make them 
targets of violence in Iraq. 
Brown 

Latest source of this page is cablebrowser-2, released 2011-10-04