VZCZCXYZ0001
OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHRB #0484/01 0761613
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 171613Z MAR 06
FM AMEMBASSY RABAT
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 3119
INFO RUEHAS/AMEMBASSY ALGIERS PRIORITY 3815
RUEHAK/AMEMBASSY ANKARA PRIORITY 0167
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON PRIORITY 2828
RUEHMD/AMEMBASSY MADRID PRIORITY 5394
RUEHNK/AMEMBASSY NOUAKCHOTT PRIORITY 3041
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS PRIORITY 4065
RUEHCL/AMCONSUL CASABLANCA PRIORITY 1402
RUEHIT/AMCONSUL ISTANBUL PRIORITY 0074
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L RABAT 000484 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR NEA/MAG, EUR 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/01/2009 
TAGS: ECON KISL MAS MO PGOV PREL
SUBJECT: MOROCCO-TURKEY RELATIONS:  A ROBUST AGENDA 
 
REF: 2005 RABAT 673 
 
Classified By: POL/C Timothy Lenderking for Reasons 1.4. (b) and (d) 
 
¶1.  (C) Summary:  During a recent two-hour lunch with 
Polcouns, Turkish Embassy First Secretary Turker Ari painted 
a diverse portrait of Morocco-Turkish relations, touching on 
a series of planned and already executed high-level visits, 
extensive relations between the two countries' Islamist 
parties (despite some gaffes on the part of the Moroccan 
Party for Justice and Development), with some rough patches 
in cooperation between Turkey and Morocco on G-8/BMENA 
initiatives.  End Summary. 
 
High-Level Exchanges 
-------------------- 
 
¶2.  (C) Over lunch in late February, Turkish Embassy First 
Secretary Turker Ari outlined a vigorous series of recent 
 
SIPDIS 
high-level exchanges between Morocco and Turkey, coming on 
the heels of reciprocal visits by the two countries' prime 
ministers in the last two years (PM Jettou visited Turkey in 
April 2004, and PM Erdogan visited Morocco in March 2005). 
The key visits have included: 
 
-- FAR General Bennani:  Ari said that the head of Morocco's 
armed forces made a five-day visit to Turkey in late January 
¶2006.  The GOT "rolled out the red carpet" for Bennani. 
Turkey is interested in expanding arms sales to North Africa, 
especially in the area of communications equipment such as 
walkie-talkies.  A delegation will visit Morocco in the near 
future to pursue such sales.  The two countries are exploring 
signing a formal memorandum of understanding on military 
cooperation. 
 
-- Turkey's Minister of Justice had visited recently and was 
impressed with the Moroccan MOJ's advances in "e-justice," 
which among other things allows the Ministry to track all 
court cases electronically, and looked to borrow some ideas 
from Morocco. 
 
-- Turkey's FM planned to visit Morocco in early April.  The 
minister was a "senior Islamist" and planned to meet with the 
leadership of the Islamist PJD.  Ari commented as  an aside 
that the foreign minister had not been happy with the 
handling of some of his recent visits by Turkish embassies. 
 
Contacts between the Islamists 
------------------------------ 
 
¶3.  (C) Ari said that the Moroccan and Turkish Islamist 
parties continued to maintain good relations and close 
contact at senior levels.  Ari agreed that the PJD, through 
visits to several European countries recently and to the US 
later this spring, was putting strong emphasis on deepening 
international ties.  In that vein, Ari described as clumsy 
the PJD's recent invitation to members of a fringe Islamist 
party in Turkey, Saadat, to visit Morocco.  This move had 
annoyed some Turkish party leaders, Ari said, and 
demonstrated the PJD's international diplomacy was not yet 
very mature. 
 
G-8/BMENA Concerns 
------------------ 
 
¶4.  (C) On the negative side, Ari complained that, for such 
major players in G-8/BMENA initiatives, the Moroccans were 
not very cooperative when it was Turkey's turn to host events 
and conferences on reform.  Ari said Moroccan participation 
at recent BMENA events in Turkey was minimal; in the February 
6-7 Istanbul Conference on Women, for example, Morocco had 
sent only two civil society representatives (Amina Bouayach 
from the Moroccan Organization of Human Rights and Halima 
Zine el Abedine from Joussour) but no one from the 
government, not even a representative from the Moroccan 
embassy in Ankara.  Ari hoped for better at an upcoming event 
in June, and said Turkish Ambassador Akin Algan would lobby 
the GOM (specifically MFA Director of Bilateral Affairs 
Amrani) for stronger Moroccan participation. 
 
Trade and Tourism 
----------------- 
 
¶5.  (SBU) Ari noted that the free trade agreement between 
Turkey and Morocco went into effect on January 1, 2006, the 
same time as the US-Morocco FTA.  Ari was not particularly 
impressed with the Turkish FTA, noting that the primary 
motivation for Turkey -- despite what some Moroccans thought 
-- was to harmonize Turkish legislation with the EU.  The FTA 
is more about Turkish relations with the EU than about 
Morocco, Ari said. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Ari said the volume of trade between the two 
countries was about half a billion dollars a year.  Tourism 
was low, with about 22,000 Turks per year visiting Morocco 
and only about 5600 Moroccans visiting Turkey.  Nevertheless, 
Turkish Airlines' three flights a week between Casablanca and 
Istanbul were running at 80 percent capacity, which Ari 
thought respectable. 
 
Mauritania Travel 
----------------- 
 
¶7.  (C) Ari noted that Turkish Ambassador Algan, whose 
jurisdiction includes Mauritania, would be traveling in the 
near future to Nouakchott to assess the situation there and 
expected to meet Colonel Fal. 
****************************************** 
Visit Embassy Rabat's Classified Website; 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/rabat 
****************************************** 
 
Riley