US embassy cable - 03ANKARA1158

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.

TERRORIST FINANCE: INITIAL TURKISH RESPONSE ON CHECHENS, HEKMATYAR, ANSAR AL-ISLAM, LASHKAR

Identifier: 03ANKARA1158
Wikileaks: View 03ANKARA1158 at Wikileaks.org
Origin: Embassy Ankara
Created: 2003-02-21 14:31:00
Classification: SECRET
Tags: ETTC EFIN PTER CVIS TU
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.

S E C R E T ANKARA 001158 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
STATE FOR EUR/SE, EB/ESC/ESP AND S/CT 
TREASURY FOR GENERAL COUNSEL (DAVID AUFHAUSER) AND 
TASK FORCE ON TERRORIST FINACING 
 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/02/2006 
TAGS: ETTC, EFIN, PTER, CVIS, TU 
SUBJECT: TERRORIST FINANCE:  INITIAL TURKISH RESPONSE ON 
CHECHENS, HEKMATYAR, ANSAR AL-ISLAM, LASHKAR 
 
REF: A. SECSTATE 46849 
     B. SECSTATE 44222 
     C. SECSTATE 39386 
     D. SECSTATE 26891 
 
 
(U) Classified by Economic Counselor Scot Marciel for reasons 
1.5 (b), (d). 
 
 
1.  (S) On February 18 and 21, MFA Department Head for 
Intelligence and Research Nihat Ersen and MFA 
counter-terrorism officer Firat Sunel responded to our 
demarches on four terrorist asset freeze requests (reftels). 
 Two of the four involved pre-notifications of upcoming UN 
designations (Chechen groups and Ansar al-Islam), and we 
stressed the  need to act quickly on both requests. 
 
 
2.  (S) Ersen and Sunel said the names on the four demarches 
would be circulated interagency to GOT intelligence agencies, 
Treasury, banking regulatory board and Central Bank to 
research possible financial links to Turkey.  If there were 
any assets under these names in Turkey, they would be blocked 
informally.  However, formal, legal blocking of assets 
required a Council of Ministers decree, and GOT practice was 
to include names on such decrees only after they have been 
designated by the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee.  The MFA 
was now preparing a draft decree and would include on it 
about 20 names recently designated by the UN (including 
Laashkar i Jhangvi). 
 
 
3.  (U)  Sunel updated us on the reaction to the last Council 
of Ministers decree, issued in October 2002, which included 
the Nasreddin Holding company in Istanbul.   This company's 
assets had been blocked, and Sunel said he would find out the 
dollar amount involved and inform us.  The MFA had recently 
received a letter from the company's Turkish lawyers 
threatening a lawsuit if the assets were not unblocked. 
PEARSON 

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