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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 USOSCE 000015 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/20/2020 
TAGS: OSCE PTER PREL ZK AF KZ KG TI TX UZ
SUBJECT: OSCE CENTRAL ASIAN MISSION HEADS STRIVING TO 
ENHANCE EFFECTIVENESS AND COOPERATION 
 
Classified By: CDA Carol Fuller for Reasons 1.4(b) and (d) 
 
 SUMMARY 
------- 
¶1. (SBU) In a series of meetings on January 12 and 13 with 
OSCE Heads of Mission from four Central Asian States 
(Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan), all 
four struck similar themes on Afghanistan, radicalization, 
border security, and Kazakhstan's proposal for a summit.  On 
Afghanistan, each highlighted the difficulties their host 
governments encountered in working with Afghans due to 
corruption and/or general disorganization and the need for 
someone to oversee and coordinate future OSCE joint training 
proposals.  Several agreed on the need for an OSCE focal 
point located inside Afghanistan to handle coordination. 
Most agreed there are evident worrying trends towards 
radicalization in Central Asia, although the depth of the 
problem remains unknown.  There was agreement, however, that 
a role exists for the OSCE in combating radicalization and 
extremism in the region.  All called for increased 
programming on border security.  Uzbekistan and Tajikistan 
HoMs agreed that elections were largely a s 
ham in their countries, but saw value in having OSCE election 
observers there nonetheless.  On a summit, all saw it as 
likely or certain their host countries would agree to a 
Summit in Astana - including Uzbekistan.  End summary. 
 
TAJIKISTAN 
---------- 
¶2. (SBU) Ambassador Ivar Vikki of Norway has been Head of 
Mission (HoM) in Tajikistan for four months.  Following on 
his four years as HoM at the OSCE Center in Kazakhstan, Vikki 
said he was stunned by the depth of poverty in Tajikistan and 
the levels of violence against women.  He cited a growing 
trend towards increased incidents of polygamy as one worrying 
sign towards radicalization.  Vikki described his contacts 
with the government of Tajikistan as very good and said the 
GOT was supportive of the Center's work.  Vikki said Tajik 
NGOs are active on gender, environmental and small business 
issues, but less so on political matters.  On elections, 
Vikki said it was regrettable that Tajikistan took none of 
ODIHR's recommendations, but, in response to a question, said 
that he did not think it was because there had been too many. 
 He said the upcoming election was almost a non-issue, about 
which he has heard very little in-country.  He said the area 
to focus on with elections is the counting process and the 
medi 
a's handling of the election.  However, he said he did not 
expect much from the election.  Vikki said the areas of 
border management training and demining were still in need of 
more work.  While a great deal of demining activity was being 
done in the south of Tajikistan, he said one of the more 
serious obstacles was that people working on the border were 
often shot at and frequently killed by Uzbek border guards. 
Overall, Vikki said he thought things were moving backwards 
in Tajikistan. 
 
¶3. (SBU) On Afghanistan, Vikki said the Afghans failed to 
provide sufficient detail on their nominees to the Tajiks 
when planning joint training programs.  He also said 
corruption at the Tajik Embassy in Kabul, as well as 
excessive bureaucracy, were ongoing obstacles to Afghan's 
obtaining visas for joint training.  He suggested having a 
person in Kabul to "influence" these issues and suggested the 
person should be from Kazakhstan (Note: Kazakhstan's 
Ambassador to the OSCE told us January 19 that they intend to 
appoint one of their Embassy officers in Kabul as an OSCE 
focal point for activities related to Afghanistan).  Finally, 
he said Afghan in-fighting about who should be selected for 
training was also a problem. 
 
TURKMENISTAN 
------------ 
¶4. (SBU) Ambassador Arsim Zekolli of Macedonia has been HoM 
in Ashgabat for eleven months.  Zekolli told CDA Fuller that 
he was approached by the head of the Border Services in 
Turkmenistan on December 30 saying Turkmenistan was ready to 
do a year-long training program for their border officers in 
both the desert and the mountain regions of the country. 
(NOTE: Privately, Zekolli told poloff that he negotiated the 
right to personally select one of the three leads for this 
project whom he wants to be an American.  "Get me someone 
good," he said.  End note.)  He said night patrolling and 
Mountain area border training was where the Turkmen most 
wanted training.  On the continuing problem with students not 
being permitted to leave the country, Zekolli said now was 
the time to start increasing pressure on the GOT.  Asked 
about radicalization, Zekolli said there is little evidence 
of this in Turkmenistan, however there is an increase in the 
number of persons attending mosques and an effort by the GOT 
to increase a 
sense of nationalistic conservatism which he described as the 
 
USOSCE 00000015  002 OF 003 
 
 
basis for radicalization.  The Turkmen, he said, are not 
interested in anti-radicalization training because it would 
be an admission that they have a problem. 
 
¶5. (SBU) On Afghanistan, Zekolli said there needs to be much 
better coordination with Kabul.  "They send names like 
'Mohammed from Kandahar,'" he said with exasperation.  He 
suggested hiring someone to handle coordination and proffered 
the name of the current Polish Ambassador to Afghanistan as a 
person who would be good for the position.  Zekolli said the 
Turkmen feel like they are wasting their time with the 
Afghans and fear that many just want to escape their country 
which is why the GOT will no longer allow training for 
Afghans in Ashgabat. 
 
UZBEKISTAN 
---------- 
¶6. (SBU) Ambassador Istvan Venczel from Hungary, Project 
Coordinator in Uzbekistan, told CDA Fuller that the greatest 
problem facing his office is its status.  However, he said 
that despite being "downgraded" to a Project Coordinator's 
Office in 2006, they had actually been able to increase the 
number of projects across all three dimensions.  He said 
that, through the projects, the Office is still able to have 
real influence in Uzbekistan.  He explained that the Uzbek 
President personally has to sign off on virtually everything, 
resulting in long administrative delays.  Venczel said the 
Office is not allowed to do any monitoring or political 
reporting.  Asked about whether he or his staff had been able 
to visit imprisoned journalist Dilmurod Sayyid whose wife and 
daughter were recently killed in a car crash, Venczel said he 
was not permitted to visit any prisoners despite having 
requested the opportunity to do so. 
 
¶7. (SBU) CDA Fuller asked Venczel about the "forward 
movement" ODIHR Director Ambassador Lenarcic spoke about at 
the end of 2009. "Last year, yes, but this year, we have seen 
nothing positive," he replied.  He expressed hope, however, 
that Uzbekistan might sign onto the International Convention 
on the Prohibition of Torture, if pressed.  Venczel said it 
was good that ODIHR sent a small election support team to 
Uzbekistan in December, given the public statements by 
Lenarcic that ODIHR wanted to work with the country. 
 
¶8.  (SBU) Adding that the Uzbeks want to control the Office 
more and more, he said that if the GOU tries to limit the 
Office even further, it would be worth having a discussion 
about the value of keeping the office open.  He said it was 
not worth keeping the office simply to please the host 
country.  On a proposed  training program to counter violent 
extremism leading to terrorism sponsored by the OSCE's Action 
against Terrorism Unit (ATU), Venczel said the government 
would support the project if it was run under the aegis of 
the Project Coordinator's Office, even if the ATU is the 
implementer, because the government is increasingly confident 
in the ability of the Office to implement projects.  . 
 
¶9. (SBU) On Afghanistan, he said that the Uzbeks, unlike 
other Central Asians, do not want the OSCE working inside the 
country and that they simply echo Russian claims that the 
OSCE has no mandate to do so.  Nonetheless, he said, the GOU 
knows that it needs the international presence in 
Afghanistan.  Finally, despite continued Uzbek claims to 
oppose an OSCE Summit in Astana, he said the personal 
relationship between the Kazakhstani President and the Uzbek 
President was nowhere near as bad (note: we are unsure as to 
his rationale for this assertion) as between the Uzbek and 
Tajiks and the Uzbeks might ultimately accede to having a 
summit. 
 
KYRGYZSTAN 
---------- 
 
¶10. (SBU) In CDA Fuller's meeting with HoM from the OSCE 
Center in Bishkek, Ambassador Andrew Tessoriere of the UK 
said the recent claims about the OSCE Academy in Bishkek 
being shut down by the government were overblown.  The 
Academy won't close, he said.  Nonetheless, the Academy may 
need to make substantive changes to its academic program to 
bring it more in line with standardized requirements - "none 
of which we meet."  Tessoriere explained that Kyrgyzstan - as 
well as other Central Asian states - was responding to the 
plethora of unregulated academic institutions that popped up 
post independence.  He said the effects of this may be felt 
by pS as the possible requirement that the Academy hire 
additional local-hire instructors and implement other 
measures to satisfy the government could be costly.  He added 
that the Kazakhstanis apparently told the Kyrgyz "not to mess 
with" the Academy.  Tessoriere said that despite some rumors 
in Vienna to the contrary, the Russians have no problem with 
Academy Director D 
r. Maxim Ryabkov, a Russian national contracted by the 
 
USOSCE 00000015  003 OF 003 
 
 
Academy and not seconded or selected by the RF. 
 
¶11. (SBU) On the relationship between the Kyrgyz and the 
Kazakhstanis, Tessoriere said it was almost as good as it 
gets.  On the increasing dangers faced by journalists in 
Kyrgyzstan, Tessoriere said he received a disappointing 
response from the Minister of Interior who sees the incidents 
as equivalent to other crime in the country.  He said 
throughout Central Asia, the security services cooperate very 
closely - and often at the expense of human rights. 
 
¶12.  (SBU) In the area of combating radicalization or radical 
Islam, Tessoriere said the Center needs more assistance, 
including a possible second US secondment who might have more 
background on extremism and radicalization than the current 
U.S. secondee working extensively and productively on police 
issues.  The truth is, he said, we have no idea how wide or 
how deep radicalization is in Central Asia, but this is 
something the OSCE could do well. 
 
¶13.  (SBU)  Tessoriere said he hoped to get the government to 
revisit the controversial law on religion and the Center was 
presently advising on a draft law on religious instruction. 
He said the government owned 555 community-based crime 
prevention centers across Kyrgyzstan that were currently 
being under-utilized and which he wanted to see turned into 
555 OSCE conflict prevention or conflict resolution centers 
to address a wide range of issues from radicalization to 
water issues, among others.  He said the proposal would 
likely meet stiff opposition from the Ministry of Interior, 
however.  Tessoriere said many experts on Central Asia claim 
the governments there are too strong to ever have a radical 
group take control as with the Taliban in Afghanistan.  He 
noted he had been a student in Iran in 1976, when people said 
the Shah was too strong to ever lose control. 
 
¶14. (SBU) On Afghanistan, Tessoriere said there is broad 
willingness to have Afghans trained in Central Asia, 
including Bishkek, and even some pride over the fact.  He 
stressed, however, the need for someone to coordinate OSCE 
work inside Afghanistan and said he would in fact like to be 
that person.  With an extensive background in Afghanistan and 
continuing close ties to President Karzai and others in the 
government, he could be the person best suited to do so.  "I 
know the Taliban, and I know what they would want in a deal," 
he said.  He said there were currently too many proposals in 
Central Asia for how to deal with Afghanistan - where 
everyone is competing to be involved, but there is no space 
for them to do so.  The Uzbeks want the six plus three.  The 
Tajiks say they should lead because of their common language, 
while the Kazakhs say they are a natural due to their role as 
CiO of the OSCE.  He added, however, that the Bishkek 
Initiative held no sway with the international community and 
said the upcomin 
g London Donors' Conference should be taking place in the 
region; and since neither Pakistan nor Iran were appropriate, 
he suggested somewhere in Central Asia.  "As it is, it is yet 
another meeting at the western end of the pike."  Finally, 
Tessoriere said the OSCE Center's Police Reform program might 
have applicability in Afghanistan.  Although it is often 
difficult to get people to go to Afghanistan, the Central 
Asians are usually willing to do so, he said. 
 
¶15. (C) COMMENT.  Each OSCE Mission in Central Asia operates 
with a unique set of constraints and circumstances, but these 
meetings also demonstrated a degree of commonality of 
concerns.  All the Mission heads share our goal of actively 
seeking out ways to better anchor Afghanistan in Central Asia 
through the development, wherever possible, of concrete 
assistance projects aimed in part at fostering enhanced 
regional cooperation.  They agreed that an OSCE focal point 
inside Afghanistan is needed to facilitate coordination of 
OSCE project training in the region (Note: something we 
understand the Kazakhstanis intend to locate within their 
Embassy in Kabul).  All the Mission heads also agreed that 
whatever the national differences in the region, Kazakhstan's 
Chairmanship of the OSCE this year will likely be a signal 
development in how the Central Asians view the OSCE and the 
role it can play in promoting and shaping substantial 
dialogue on relevant issues.  The United States, particularly 
our Embassies in Central 
 Asia, should continue to see these OSCE Field Presences as 
significant tools for constructing a more cooperative and 
constructive Central Asia. 
FULLER