VZCZCXYZ0000
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHUNV #0578/01 3521144
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 181144Z DEC 09 ZDK
FM USMISSION UNVIE VIENNA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 0456
INFO AFGHA/AFGHANISTAN COLLECTIVE
RUEHTA/AMEMBASSY ASTANA 0222
RUEHRL/AMEMBASSY BERLIN 0936
RUEHIL/AMEMBASSY ISLAMABAD 0329
RUEHBUL/AMEMBASSY KABUL 0317
RUEHNR/AMEMBASSY NAIROBI 0004
RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI 0363
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 1811

C O N F I D E N T I A L UNVIE VIENNA 000578 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/14/2019 
TAGS: PGOV UN KCRM UNODC IR
SUBJECT: INL A/S JOHNSON MEETINGS ON AFGHANISTAN AND 
RELATED REGIONAL COUNTERNARCOTICS EFFORTS 
 
Classified By: AMBASSADOR G. DAVIES, REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D). 
 
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SUMMARY 
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¶1. (C) During a brief stopover in Vienna, INL Assistant 
Secretary David Johnson met on December 9 with UN Office on 
Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Executive Director Antonio Maria 
Costa and with UNODC officials involved in regional and 
bilateral counternarcotics (CN) work with Iran.  Ambassador 
Davies also hosted a lunch briefing for Vienna-based 
Ambassadors on the new Afghanistan strategy and its relation 
to ongoing CN efforts.  The day,s discussions highlighted 
the critical role of regional cooperation, including through 
multilateral initiatives such as the Paris Pact, to CN work 
in Afghanistan.  UNODC officials noted Iran,s interest in 
regional CN efforts relating to Afghanistan, with special 
emphasis on its &Triangular Initiative8 which encompasses 
Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. END SUMMARY 
 
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AFGHANISTAN LUNCH 
----------------- 
 
¶2. (U) At a lunch hosted by Ambassador Davies and attended by 
representatives from Afghanistan, Australia, Germany, India, 
Italy, Japan, Norway, Pakistan, Spain and Turkey, Assistant 
Secretary Johnson and Ambassador Davies moderated a lively 
discussion on Afghanistan CN efforts.  Assistant Secretary 
Johnson noted President Obama,s clear goal of moving more 
rapidly to help Afghan,s sustain themselves.  He discussed 
how U.S. counternarcotics (CN) efforts are becoming 
increasingly focused on building the rule of law, 
particularly in population centers.  The role of the military 
was growing in the areas of police training, and CN efforts 
were being refocused with a greater emphasis on interdiction 
vice eradication.  Later in the lunch, Assistant Secretary 
Johnson outlined two important lessons from work in the 
Golden Triangle and elsewhere: that ungoverned territory is 
our enemy and that interdiction is more effective when it is 
closer to the source. 
 
¶3. (U) Afghanistan Ambassador Dr. Abdul Shoogufan emphasized 
that Afghanistan,s drug problems required joint efforts from 
a number of countries.  He praised the CN approach described 
by Assistant Secretary Johnson, opining that a greater focus 
on alternative development will help grow Afghanistan,s 
agricultural sector.  German Ambassador Rudiger Ludeking 
commented on the downward movement of Afghanistan on the 
Transparency International corruption index, and wondered if 
our efforts were sustainable in such an environment. 
Recently installed Ambassador Ramazan Bayer from Turkey 
replied that in his experience, which included a posting in 
Afghanistan some 30 years ago, the central government, 
however corrupt, had limited influence and that the key to 
sustainability was to focus on the provincial and local 
levels. 
 
¶4. (U) Indian Charge Dinesh Patniak questioned why the 
spotlight of the international community was focused on the 
porous borders of Afghanistan, as opposed to the borders of 
the European Union, where technology and expertise is greater 
but where the Europeans have failed to stem the tide of 
heroin and opium to its citizens.  Assistant Secretary 
Johnson refuted the notion that Afghanistan and the region 
would not face any drug problems if the U.S. and Europe 
somehow halted their demand for Afghan drugs.  He noted that 
nearby countries like Iran are already major users of heroin 
that can be linked to Afghanistan. 
 
¶5. (U) Australian Ambassador Michael Potts noted the 
challenge of interdiction, and argued for greater 
intelligence sharing.  Even in Australia, an island with no 
porous land borders, it is difficult to interdict and almost 
all of Australia,s notable seizures of contraband are based 
on intelligence.  Spanish DCM Santiago Martinez-Caro and 
Turkey Ambassador Bayer seconded the importance of 
intelligence sharing among neighboring and other countries. 
 
¶6. (U) Japan Ambassador Takeshi Nakane announced that 
Japan,s recent multi-billion dollar pledge to Afghanistan 
will include contributions to UNODC for border control, 
demand reduction and alternative development.  He hopes 
 
publicly to announce this contribution soon. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ------------ 
MEETING WITH UNODC,S COSTA: AFRICA, AFGHANISTAN AND IRAN 
--------------------------------------------- ----------- 
 
¶7. (U) During Assistant Secretary Johnson,s meeting with 
UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa, Costa described 
as &extraordinary8 his recent visit to the UN Security 
Council to discuss drug trafficking and drug use in Africa. 
His speech emphasized how the problems in East and West 
Africa are &meeting in the middle,8 with growing criminal 
and drug use activity in the ungoverned areas in between.  He 
saw firsthand in a recent visit to Africa how the drug 
problem had spread, describing addicts carrying needles 
&like one would carry pens.8  He thanked the U.S. for 
Ambassador Rice,s strong statement of support during that 
session.  While in New York, he also met with UN,s 
Peacekeeping Office and Political Affairs Office to discuss 
increasing their information sharing and mutual support in 
this area of the world.  He hopes to receive some funding for 
work in the region from Arab nations such as Libya and 
Algeria.  Costa also mentioned that the French, in their 
future presidency of the Security Council, intend to conduct 
sessions that will focus on other drug-prone problem regions, 
such as Afghanistan, Iran, the Andes region and Myanmar. 
 
¶8. (U) Costa then moved to the report on Afghan corruption 
which his office is finalizing.  UNODC is aiming to release 
the report sometime in mid-January.  Costa said the data will 
be analyzed by geographic region, sector, and rural versus 
urban.  He cautioned that we must not use this very local 
data (14,000 people surveyed in 4,000 villages) to make any 
judgments about higher-level corruption.  UNODC hopes to 
develop a second report that would focus on higher-level 
corruption, which is trickier to capture. 
 
¶9. (U) Assistant Secretary Johnson requested UNODC to 
identify additional criteria that they think would help 
measure CN progress in Afghanistan.  This would be useful as 
we move away from our focus on eradication and poppy 
cultivation.  Sandeep Chawla, Director for Research at UNODC, 
commented that it may be useful to look at the bigger picture 
of trafficking flows.  Andrea Mancini, a UNODC research 
official, explained that UNODC was already testing a new 
monitoring system at the provincial level that would look at 
law enforcement, alternative livelihoods and other data. 
Costa agreed that this would be worth pursuing. 
 
¶10. (SBU) Costa provided his opinion on Iran,s upcoming 
chairmanship of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND).  He 
feels that the Iranian Ambassador has been a &fair chair8 
in the past, and would likely act accordingly for the CND. 
He mentioned Iran,s fairly advanced demand reduction 
activities, which belies their image.  While they like to 
blame the West for their problems, they are quietly beginning 
to acknowledge the increase in heroin use by Iranians, 
particularly in urban areas.  Chawla said the Iranians are 
still only providing minimal attention to the supply issue, 
and that the supply data they produce does not have the 
integrity to provide any useful pictures. 
 
¶11. (U) Costa ended the meeting by informing Assistant 
Secretary Johnson of the expansion of UNODC,s anti-piracy 
work in Africa.  He thanked the U.S. for its financial 
support, and noted that they intend to expand their technical 
assistance operations into Somalia itself, from their current 
base in Kenya.  UNODC will also takeover administration of 
the new trust fund established for funding justice-related 
technical assistance related to fighting piracy.  UNDP had 
been named administrator, but people were unhappy with 
UNDP,s attention to the fund.  He discussed this issue in 
New York with Lynn Pascoe and they agreed that the fund will 
&be moved to Vienna8 and administered by UNODC. 
 
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WORKING WITH IRAN 
----------------- 
 
12.(C) Assistant Secretary Johnson met with Roberto Arbitrio, 
Chief of the Executive Director,s Office Roberto, who 
previously spent five years running UNODC,s office in 
Tehran, and Andrea Mancini, a UNODC Research Officer, for a 
briefing on UNODC,s programs in Iran and Iranian cooperation 
 
on the counternarcotics issue.  Arbitrio noted his belief 
that even after the elections, Tehran remains interested in 
cooperation on counternarcotics, but was sanguine that Iran 
also will use the issue as a leverage point and could 
withdraw cooperation if it feels the need to react to Western 
actions in Afghanistan or elsewhere, calling this a policy of 
&ambiguity.8  While we can expect that Iran will continue 
to blame the West for the drugs coming out of Afghanistan and 
even will accuse the West of actually facilitating the drug 
problem, this does not mean that Iran is not interested in 
engagement or committed to drug control, since Tehran takes 
CN seriously given its internal drug use problems.  Iran 
wants to be recognized for these extensive efforts and to be 
seen as a peer in combating drugs. 
 
13.(C) In response to Johnson,s question about whether Iran 
is doing anything to facilitate the transit of narcotics 
through Iran, Arbitrio argued that most of the drugs transit 
the Sistan va Baluchistan province, where Iran has little 
control and is worried about stability and the growth of a 
greater Baluch movement.  Similarly, the border areas 
elsewhere are dangerous and &no one knows what is happening 
there,8 acknowledging the possibility that Iran or Iranians 
could be involved to some degree.  (Comment: Arbitrio has 
told us elsewhere that he doubts that Tehran as a policy 
would be facilitating the drug trade given the serious 
problem Iran faces in combating trafficking, but he cannot 
rule out that some officials on the borders are corrupt since 
they are not well paid and operate in a part of the world 
where corruption often runs rampant, and that elements of the 
Iranian government could have different objectives.  End 
Comment) 
 
¶14. (C) Looking forward to the Iranian presidency of the CND, 
Arbitrio noted that Iran has not yet made its intentions 
completely clear.  Nevertheless, Iran has signaled that a 
regional approach to Afghanistan is a priority, and this is 
likely to be Iran,s focus.  Arbitrio said that Iran,s 
interactions at the last CND showed that it wants to be a 
partner on development assistance to Afghanistan.  He did not 
specifically push for cooperation between the U.S. and Iran, 
but again informed us of Iran,s interest in engagement 
generally in CN matters with the West, including through 
peer-to-peer discussions and engagement with the mini-Dublin 
Group.  Mancini added as encouragement that it was a major 
step that Iran and the U.S. agreed on the same strategy on 
counternarcotics through the Paris Pact. 
 
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COMMENTS 
--------- 
 
¶15. (U) The theme of the day was not surprisingly the need 
for regional cooperation in our CN efforts, particularly 
related to Afghanistan and in emerging hotspots such as 
Africa.  Costa highlighted the need for increasing 
international attention and cooperation related to Africa, 
and the challenge of generating interest and engagement among 
regional players such as the Arab countries of North Africa, 
even if only through financial support. END COMMENT 
DAVIES