US embassy cable - 05ANKARA6561

C O N F I D E N T I A L ANKARA 006561 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/02/2015 
TAGS: PREL, ECON, ETRD, PROV, TU, EU 
SUBJECT: TURKEY'S PLANS FOR MOVING FORWARD ON EU ACCESSION 
 
REF: BRUSSELS (USEU) 3756 
 
Classified By: A/DCM James Moore, reasons 1.4 (b, d). 
 
1. (C) Summary:  MFA Deputy U/S Bozkir, one of the leads in 
Turkey's EU accession negotiations, told us that the GoT's 
inter-ministerial negotiating structure is up and running, 
and they are proceeding with the screening of initial 
chapters.  His immediate concerns are the Progress Report and 
Accession Partnership due out November 9; Cyprus-related 
issues, and what he termed as "special conditions" Turkey may 
face because of the existing Customs Union with the EU.  It 
is likely to be a bumpy road, though the Turks understand 
they are entering the technical phase.  End summary. 
 
The Screening Process 
--------------------- 
 
2.(SBU) Ambassador Volkan Bozkir, who has shepherded Turkey's 
EU accession preparations from within the Turkish bureaucracy 
for five years and will - assuming he gets agrement - soon 
move to Brussls to head the Turkish Permanent Representation 
to the EU, laid out the Turkish structure and strategy for 
EconCouns and PolCouns.  The initial screening phase had 
begun in Brussels, and would be completed within one year. 
The Turks (together with the Croats) had already been to 
Brussels for the "educational" portion of the screening on 
the Science and Research chapter, and were now returning solo 
for what he termed the "implementation" portion.  According 
to the Commission's schedule, the Turks hoped to complete the 
initial screening phase for six chapters of the Acquis before 
the end of the calendar year.  Once the screening process is 
complete on a particular chapter, a Commission report and 
recommendation, which in some cases may contain benchmarks, 
will be sent to the Council.  With Council approval they will 
then begin to open chapters.  Bozkir hoped they would 
formally open Science and Research and perhaps Agriculture in 
January. 
 
The Turkish Team 
---------------- 
 
3.(SBU) The nucleus of the Turkish negotiating team will, 
Bozkir confirmed, consist of five players:  the MFA, the 
Prime Ministry, the State Planning Organization (SPO), the 
Secretariat General for the EU, and their Permanent Mission 
 
SIPDIS 
to the EU.  He noted that MFA controls two of these, and that 
as FM Gul has the formal lead, MFA has "three trees" in this 
forest.  He described Gul as the "political minesweeper" and 
State Minister Ali Babacan, who is organizing the overall 
strategy, as overseeing the more technical aspects of the 
process.  Babacan would, for example, preside each week at 
two screening-related inter-ministerial meetings and, as 
individual chapters progress, ensure that the right 
ministries or organizations are tapped to work on appropriate 
chapters.  There will be a series of working group meetings 
as chapters are opened and progress, and subcommissions 
assigned to work each individual chapter.  Bozkir thought the 
process was working well in its early days.  (Comment:  Any 
kind of inter-ministerial process is unusual in Turkey.  Some 
have posited that Babacan's proposed structure could prove 
clumsy.  If it is possible for it to function relatively 
well, it would actually mark an important change in how the 
Turks do business within their own governmental structures. 
End comment.) 
 
The November 9 Reports 
---------------------- 
 
4.(SBU) The next hurdle will be the Progress Report and the 
Accession Partnership document, both of which are due out 
November 9.  Bozkir and his colleagues have reviewed a first 
draft and are "trying to avoid dangerous wording."  They 
realize, he said, that there will be negative language in 
some areas.  The Accession Partnership document must be 
ratified by the Council and published in the Commission's 
official gazette.  Bozkir explained that the Turks are 
looking for wording that is more diplomatic than technical. 
Their current biggest concern is the use of language 
referring to "Kurdish minority" and "Alawite minority" rights 
(Note: This always runs up against Lausanne Agreement 
definitional problems for the Turks; i.e., they recognize 
only those minorities - Greeks, Jew and Armenians - defined 
in the 1923 Lausanne Agreement.  End note.) and references to 
the Southeast with respect to regional disparities, 
neglecting other impoverished and economically rather 
backward regions of Turkey.  On the plus side, the Turks 
expect Turkey will be given good marks on the Copenhagen 
criteria requirement that Turkey have a "functioning market 
economy". 
 
Cyprus, of Course 
 
 
----------------- 
 
5. (C)  Cyprus, of course, is a perennial headache.  Bozkir 
noted that Cyprus was included in the Accession Partnership 
differently than in the past.  His main concern was that the 
language not give the issue a greater EU perspective while 
neglecting the UN role.  If the language goes further than 
last December's Brussels declaration, it would, he stated, 
harm the paper as a whole and undermine its credibility.  It 
is important, he stressed, that it be a credible document 
that can be used as a reference point for the future.  When 
asked about the potential for Cyprus to veto the opening of 
chapters unrelated to the issue of opening Turkish ports and 
airports to the Republic of Cyprus, Bozkir joked that, while 
Nicosia had at least 70 chances to exercise a veto during 
Turkey's accession process, he doubted they would expend 
internal EU political capital to block the opening of 
chapers such as Science and Research. 
 
 
6. (C)  When asked about the GoT's plans for ratification of 
the Ankara Agreement Extension Protocol, Bozkir responded 
that they did not feel obliged to do so.  In his view, there 
was no formal requirement that parliament ratify it. 
(Comment:  Bozkir, so far, is the sole official with whom we 
have spoken who has taken this view; it may also reflect the 
current reality that the GoT has decided to bide its time 
before submitting it to parliament.  End comment.) 
 
Customs Union Criteria 
---------------------- 
 
7. (C)  An issue that clearly made Bozkir unhappy was the 
prospect of the EU making resolution of outstanding issues 
under the Customs Union preconditions for the opening of 
certain chapters.  In particular, Bozkir was sensitive to the 
EU threat to delay the opening of the IPR chapter until the 
Turks had fully implemented data exclusivity protections in 
the pharmaceutical approval process, as required by the 
Customs Union agreement and the WTO TRIPS agreement.  Bozkir 
acknowledged that Turkish practice could fall short in some 
areas covered by the Customs Union, but said that Turkey was 
in effect being "punished" for having implemented the Customs 
Union in 1996, well before other countries that were now 
already full EU members.  Other candidate countries are not 
part of a customs union with the EU.  Bozkir felt that such 
issues should be addressed through the process of negotiating 
the specific chapters rather than making their solution 
preconditions to starting the process. 
 
8.  (C)  Bozkir also viewed setting economic preconditions as 
not in line with the 1993 Copenhagen criteria, which had set 
political conditions to the opening of negotiations, but left 
economic issues to be the subject of the accession talks. 
Raising conditions to open certain chapters would cause 
blow-back in Ankara.  Rather than encouraging resolution of 
the deficiencies under the Customs Union, the result could 
well be that the opening of problematic chapters would be 
delayed until later in the accession process. 
 
9. (C)  Comment:  The Turks - at least Bozkir, and he deals 
with the entire accession bureaucracy - realize that once 
chapters are open, this is no longer a negotiation in the 
true sense of the word.  The Turks are likely to remain in 
fighting form, though, as long as they perceive that the EU 
is piling additional political requirements onto the process. 
 The next steps here will be the reaction to the EU documents 
to be released November 9 - the media are already previewing 
the anti-torture and human rights steps supposedly contained 
in the Accession Partnership document, likely in an attempt 
to soften the blow in advance.  It is unlikely, given the 
prospect for numerous Cyprus-related dust-ups, that this 
process will ever settle down to the "below the radar screen" 
level that many Turks would like.  We are in for years of 
brinksmanship, hopefully mixed with true progress, both in 
negotiations, and with regard to continued implementation of 
reforms here in Turkey. 
MCELDOWNEY