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Dianne Wampler  03/05/2007 08:12:16 PM  From  DB/Inbox:  Dianne Wampler

Cable 
Text:                                                                      
                                                                           
      
UNCLAS    SENSITIVE     ISTANBUL 00167

SIPDIS
CX:
    ACTION: POL
    INFO:   PA CONS TSR PMA ECON MGT DAO DCM AMB RAO FCS

DISSEMINATION: POL /1
CHARGE: PROG

VZCZCAYO249
RR RUEHAK
DE RUEHIT #0167/01 0611045
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 021045Z MAR 07
FM AMCONSUL ISTANBUL
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 6688
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUEHVV/ISLAMIC CONFERENCE COLLECTIVE
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RUEKJCS/DIA WASHDC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ISTANBUL 000167 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE - NOT FOR INTERNET DISTRIBUTION 
 
E.O. 12958:  N/A 
TAGS: PREL CVIS SOCI CASC KFRD KPAO TU
SUBJECT: FROM THE VISA LINE: WINTER'S TALES 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary: From the Visa Line is a reporting vehicle 
encompassing vignettes, anecdotes and observations from Istanbul 
Consular officers' daily interactions with applicants.  In recent 
months, some applicants have cited the increasingly nationalist 
climate in Turkey as a factor motivating their travel to the United 
States.  End Summary. 
 
------------------------------- 
Come to Where the Flavor Is Not 
------------------------------- 
 
¶2. (SBU) In December, an officer observed that the applicant before 
her was quaking more than usual for even the most nervous of 
visa-seekers.  As the interview progressed, and it was clear the 
applicant had answered all questions truthfully and was qualified to 
travel to the United States, the officer's curiosity about his 
anxiety increased.  Unable to reconcile his jittery demeanor with 
his reasoned responses, the officer finally asked the applicant 
directly why he was so shaky.  His reply: "I haven't had a cigarette 
for two hours!"  He last was seen walking quickly to the courtyard 
to light up.  No word on how he will cope with a long, non-smoking 
flight. 
 
-------------------------------- 
In the Aye-Yi-Yi of the Beholder 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶3. (SBU) An artist wishing to exhibit in Greenwich Village appeared 
at an officer's window in January.  Asked about his work, the artist 
explained that he was a painter and the officer--taking advantage of 
the information technology at his fingertips--pulled up the 
applicant's home page on his computer screen.  To his surprise, the 
officer discovered the applicant specialized in erotic portraiture. 
Lest he be cited for a cyber-security violation, the officer 
beckoned a colleague on the line to verify that his navigation to 
the website served a legitimate business purpose.  Returning to the 
applicant, the officer asked about friends and family.  Highlighting 
how tolerant Istanbul can be for a Muslim metropolis, the artist 
produced local press articles featuring his most famous work, a 
painting of a man in drag.  He said the subject was his boyfriend 
and rhapsodized that "he looks great in makeup and women's clothes." 
 The artist received a visa. 
 
------------------- 
Noblesse Non-Oblige 
------------------- 
 
¶4. (SBU) Also in January, an applicant said he wished to travel to 
the United States to donate his kidney to a fellow Turk.  He 
explained that he and the would-be recipient, a wealthy woman he 
knew from the hair salon where he worked as a tea-boy, had not yet 
agreed on the amount of compensation he would receive.  However, he 
revealed that had asked for the equivalent of $178,000--enough to 
purchase a fine home for his family in Turkey's impoverished east. 
The applicant apparently had overheard the woman telling her stylist 
of her plight and proposed what he believed would be a mutually 
beneficial arrangement.  The officer denied the applicant, called 
the would-be recipient to the window, and gently explained to both 
parties that organ-selling is illegal in the United States.  Before 
and after the interview, several of Istanbul's rich and powerful 
lobbied--fruitlessly, of course--for the applicant to receive a 
visa, suggesting implicitly that they view themselves above the law 
and regard such transactions as consistent with their understanding 
of benevolent patronage; after all, how else could their poor 
tea-boy afford a house? 
 
----------------------------- 
Should I Stay or Should I Go? 
----------------------------- 
 
¶5. (SBU) A well-known Turkish writer applied in late January for a 
visa to travel in connection with the promotion of the 
English-language edition of her latest novel.  The writer, who--like 
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink and Nobel prize-winning 
author Orhan Pamuk--had been cited with "insulting Turkish-ness" 
through a literary portrayal of an Armenian family's experience with 
the 1915 so-called "genocide"--said Dink's assassination on January 
19 convinced her it was a good time not to be in Turkey.  The 
prospect of an U.S. Congressional "Armenian Genocide Resolution" 
further fueled her desire to leave, but fear of threats from 
ultra-nationalist Turks in the United States had compelled her to 
sharply curtail her original itinerary.  "Dink himself opposed such 
a resolution.  He knew it would make things here worse, not better, 
and told me he would go and personally tell the Congress that no 
genocide occurred here--even though he knew the truth--if this would 
stop them from doing something so divisive." 
 
--------------- 
Minority Report 
--------------- 
 
¶6. (SBU) In early February, a Turkish student seeking travel to 
Rochester, New York, to complete doctoral studies in economics 
learned that security processing (necessitated by a CLASS entry) 
would delay his return to the United States for up to 12 weeks.  The 
applicant told the interviewing officer that, more than missing his 
US-resident wife and American-citizen child and the start of the new 
semester, he was deeply disappointed not to be able to leave Turkey 
before March.  He explained he is Jewish and that he fears reprisals 
against minority communities here if the U.S. Congress passes an 
Armenian genocide resolution.  "We're all countrymen until someone 
questions Turkey," he said.  "Once that happens, the Turks begin to 
look for enemies in their midst, and we Jews always are first ones 
to be singled out and punished." 
 
JONES