US embassy cable - 05ISTANBUL175

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ISTANBUL 000175 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EUR/PPD - MHURLEY, VWALKER, CTEAL 
STATE INFO EUR/SE, IIP/G/EUR, R 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O 12958: N/A 
TAGS: SCUL, KPAO, PREL, TU, Istanbul 
SUBJECT: MUSLIM OUTREACH - THE INDIRECT APPROACH 
 
1. (SBU) Summary: While remaining steadfast in opposition to 
U.S. policies on Iraq and the Middle East, Islam-oriented 
opinion leaders and broader audiences of devout Muslims in 
Istanbul and the surrounding areas have been receptive to 
our public outreach on other topics of common interest.  Our 
ongoing efforts to present a positive, multi-dimensional 
view of the United States appear to have had some success in 
moderating the anti-American sentiment that we routinely 
encounter.  For impact on our core foreign policy issues, 
long-term, sustained outreach on these broader topics is 
vital to our public affairs effort.  End Summary. 
 
2. (SBU) The Istanbul and Marmara region includes a 
disproportionate share of Turkey's economic base, 
universities, media and cultural life.  It is also home to 
about one-third of Turkey's 70 million citizens, including a 
large and influential Islam-oriented population.  Reaching 
out to them is our top priority.  At the same time, these 
groups are difficult to engage with our traditional public 
affairs programming.  They are generally not found in 
university faculties, and they do not attend jazz concerts 
or art openings.  We have responded with new strategies. 
 
3. (SBU) The difficulty in conveying our message on key 
foreign policy priorities was exemplified by the 
difficulties we had in December in programming Max Boot, a 
fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations whose views and 
writings closely support the Administration's policies 
toward Iraq and the Middle East.  When we offered to 
schedule Boot for a talk at leading Bosphorus University, 
the political science department refused to allow Boot to 
speak before its students.  Likewise, the Islam-oriented 
daily newspaper Zaman refused to interview Boot, and the 
Istanbul office of the ruling Justice and Development Party 
(AKP) refused to attend a roundtable with him.  In the end, 
we did bring together good audiences at events we sponsored 
-- usually around meals -- and a number of contacts 
appreciated the debate.  However, we note that two of the 
three newspaper articles about Boot's visit were negative. 
 
4. (SBU) In contrast, offering programming on other topics 
of common interest opens doors to audiences that we cannot 
reach with our traditional public affairs offerings.  In 
October, regular contact with the AKP Istanbul branch, 
especially with a senior party member whom we sent on an IV 
program in 2003, led to an invitation for U.S. elections 
speaker Tom Schaller of the University of Maryland to attend 
an iftar (the meal that breaks the daily Ramadan fast) and 
address over 200 party members afterwards.  Schaller engaged 
the audience for 90 minutes -- 45 minutes past the allotted 
time -- until the AKP host was forced to apologize for 
ending the session.  Schaller and the consulate staff were 
surrounded afterwards by inquisitive AKP members who stayed 
to ask questions about the elections, the speaker and the 
U.S. in general. 
 
5. (SBU) On November 3, the Consulate hosted a breakfast and 
panel discussion at the Conrad Hotel to coincide with the 
announcement of the U.S. election returns.  We invited 
guests to join us for a suhor (the pre-sunrise breakfast 
that precedes the daily fast during Ramadan) and a 
discussion panel that included a prominent AKP economist. 
Forty guests came to the suhor and over 400 attended during 
the rest of the morning, with significant participation from 
the more devout sectors of society.  An unprecedented 43 
media organizations covered our event live.  The fact that 
the Consulate had used the event to host a suhor was 
mentioned frequently, and two national newspapers featured 
it the next day in their headlines.  We still hear about it 
from our contacts. 
 
6. (SBU) We took another opportunity to engage our target 
audiences when we brought out Steven Smith, a speaker on NGO 
development from the University of Washington.  Over the 
course of several days, Smith addressed over 600 NGO 
representatives, half of whom worked with Islamic grass- 
roots organizations.  At a meeting with the board of TGTV 
(Foundation for Volunteer Organizations in Turkey), an 
Istanbul-based umbrella group for Islamic NGOs, many of the 
23 attendees were initially openly hostile.  "Why are these 
Americans here?" asked one participant; another openly 
protested the TGTV President's decision to invite Smith to 
address the group for 30 minutes.  An hour and a half later, 
the President reluctantly ended the lively Q&A session.  In 
stark contrast to our cold welcome, most of the NGO 
representatives followed Smith out of the room to prolong 
the dialogue, thank him for participating, and wish us on 
our way.  The next day, Smith was the sole speaker at a 
lively conference in Bursa that continued for three hours. 
The audience of 103 NGO representatives was full of head- 
scarved women from social service NGOs sitting beside 
Islamic human rights activists.  In the evening, the NGO 
host and three leading AKP members joined us for dinner to 
discuss NGOs, politics and American foreign policy. 
 
7. (SBU) Comment: We have taken a few lessons from our 
experiences in reaching out to Islam-oriented and devout 
Muslim audiences in the Istanbul and Marmara region.  First, 
we must invest considerable time and energy in finding and 
developing relations with new Islam-oriented audiences and 
groups, most of which disagree with our policies and are 
reluctant to be openly associated with the Consulate. 
Second, because these people are difficult to engage with 
our traditional educational and cultural fare, we must 
carefully design programs with topics that appeal to these 
new audiences, and with costly interpretation (many of our 
audiences are not English-speaking).  Anecdotal evidence 
suggests that these public affairs programs are giving some 
of our new audiences a more positive image of the United 
States.  We expect these programs are also changing the way 
they look at our policies in general. 
 
ARNETT