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FM AMEMBASSY KABUL
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 5761
INFO RUCNAFG/AFGHANISTAN COLLECTIVE PRIORITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KABUL 000656 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR SRAP, SCA/FO, SCA/A, EUR/RPM, INR/B 
STATE PASS USAID FOR ASIA/SCAA 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/21/2020 
TAGS: PRE EAI TU AF
SUBJECT: SEEKING PROGRESS IN U.S.-TURKISH COOPERATION IN 
AFGHANISTAN 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry for Reasons 1.4(b,d) 
 
¶1. (C) SUMMARY:  Turkish Ambassador to Kabul Basat Ozturk 
told Ambassador February 6 that Turkey wants closer 
cooperation with the U.S. in development projects, including 
what it hopes will be a marquee project to refurbish Kabul's 
largest public hospital.  Ambassador Eikenberry agreed that 
we should explore more collaboration on development projects, 
and USAID will explore the hospital option.  However, to be 
most effective, the Ambassadors agreed that we should 
prioritize our work and focus on a few key projects first. 
Turkish police training in Wardak has been effective and 
Ankara wants to do more, including hosting 3-4,000 Afghan 
National Police at a training site in Turkey.  Turkey is 
impatient to move ahead in what Ozturk said would be a matter 
of weeks with setting up its second Provincial Reconstruction 
Team (PRT), in Jowzsjan Province, regardless of unresolved 
differences with the Swedes and Germans over maintenance of 
provincial security.  Ankara is carefully courting greater 
Indian involvement in Afghanistan. Cultural and historic 
affinities here do lend Turkey advantages in Afghanistan, but 
its results in Wardak Province have been mixed. On-going 
differences with allies and partners in the north at this 
time over the proposed Jowzsjan PRT are not helpful. 
Ambassador Ozturk has great ambitions for Afghanistan and 
greater US-Turkish cooperation on the ground.  We support 
these goals, but given the relative lack of Turkish capacity 
here will need to work carefully with Ozturk to ensure work 
is prioritized and consistent with an Afghan-led agenda. END 
SUMMARY AND COMMENT. 
 
TURKEY AS LONG-TERM, STRATEGIC PARTNER IN AFGHANISTAN 
--------------------------------------------- -------- 
 
¶2. (U) Ozturk was accompanied by Turkish Wardak aid program 
(TIKA) Coordinator Mikail Tasdemir, Wardak PRT Head Turker 
Ari, Mazar-e-Sharif Consul General Ozgun Arman, and DCM Onur 
Katmerci for a working lunch hosted by Ambassador.  Joining 
Ambassador were AID Mission Director, Deputy CDDEA, POLCOUNS, 
POL-MIL COUNS, INL/NAS Director, and ECON and IPA reps. 
 
¶3. (C) Ozturk explained that Turkey's interest in Afghanistan 
is long-term, founded on historic ties, and based on Turkey's 
self-interest in the region. Unlike some other NATO allies 
who may feel an obligation to have a presence in Afghanistan 
and who are "counting the days" until they can withdraw, 
Ozturk asserted, Turkey's own interests in the region will 
keep it engaged in development programs for many years to 
come.  Its contributions can be invaluable, Ozturk claimed, 
because Turks are "in touch with the people" of Afghanistan, 
and the Turkish people support the work being done by its PRT 
in Wardak. 
 
¶4. (C) U.S.-Turkish bilateral consultations should be based 
on strategic assessments; not all of our allies have the 
strategic sense or ability to do this, Ozturk told us.  In 
organizing the Istanbul meeting on Afghanistan last month, 
Turkey had wanted to invite India (until Pakistan objected) 
because Turkey believes India must have a greater role in 
assisting Afghanistan.  Underscoring the historic 
significance of President Gul's visit to New Delhi beginning 
February 7 in what he said is the first state visit ever by a 
Turkish president to India, Ozturk revealed that Turkey is 
actively courting additional "quiet" Indian development 
assistance in Afghanistan to fill an important regional gap. 
Turkey will push for Indian participation in future 
multilateral meetings.  Additional Indian aid must have 
minimum visibility, however, in order to avoid 
misinterpretation by Pakistan, said Ozturk.  He added that 
Turkey views India as a source of stability in the region, 
while Pakistan is a "state in trouble" in need of 
"psychological help."  Ultimately, stability in Afghanistan 
will require harmony between the two. 
 
COOPERATION ON "MODEL PROJECTS" 
------------------------------ 
 
¶5. (C) Turkey believes current national Afghan development 
plans are inadequate in the areas of infrastructure, 
transport, and particularly in education and health care. 
Ozturk noted that discussion of health care needs had 
dominated the recent meeting between Presidents Karzai and 
Gul in Istanbul.  Ozturk urged closer cooperation between 
Turkey and the U.S. on development projects, and proposed 
that respective Embassy staffs meet on a monthly basis to 
review specific "model projects" on which we might 
collaborate.  Ambassador Eikenberry agreed that we should 
cooperate more, and suggested that a short list of specific 
joint projects be developed, and we should "make them work 
 
KABUL 00000656  002 OF 003 
 
 
and make them symbolic."  Ambassador Eikenberry suggested 
Turkey participate in a planned Donors meeting on development 
plans for the city of Kabul.  Especially in light of the 
upcoming Kabul Conference, Ozturk confirmed Turkey's interest 
in providing aid to the capital, and noted that with Turkey 
currently in command of Regional Command for the capital 
region, he plans to seize the moment to meet with the new 
Kabul mayor, Engineer Mohammad Yunus Nowandish, in the near 
future.  Turkey had also promised President Karzai it would 
undertake the asphalting of some major roads in Kabul. 
 
¶6. (C) In what it hopes will be a major showcase project in 
Kabul, Ozturk said Turkey plans to refurbish and modernize 
Kabul's 400-bed Jamhuriat Hospital.  The capital's largest 
public hospital was built with Chinese funding, but it is 
hardly functional as the Chinese did not provide staff or 
high-quality equipment to run it.  The Turkish Ministry of 
Health has made an assessment, plans to renovate the 
building, and intends bring Turkish physicians, nurses, and 
technical staff on a rotating basis to work and live there. 
Turkey hopes to turn the facility into a teaching hospital 
and turn it over gradually within a 4-5 year period to a 
primarily Afghan medical staff.  Turkey is seeking a partner 
in this project.  Ambassador suggested a good model for this 
project is the Afghan National Army hospital in Kabul, 
Afghanistan's best hospital, where 40-50 U.S. military 
physicians and medical staff work along side Afghan Army 
staff as teachers and mentors.  The Ambassador offered 
assistance, if needed, in linking Ozturk's staff with U.S. 
military medical personnel for an exchange of lessons 
learned/best practices. 
 
AFGHAN POLICE TRAINING IN TURKEY ) IF EUROPEANS PAY 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
¶7. (C) Ozturk said that Turkey is pleased with the results of 
its police training efforts to date.  Turkey is currently 
teaching the MOI-approved Basic 8-Week Afghan National Police 
(ANP) curriculum at the Turkish Training Center in Maidan 
Shahr/Wardak, and is prepared to do more.  Ozturk explained 
that Turkey is working on a plan to host 3-4,000 Afghan 
National Police at a police training center in Turkey.  This 
would, Ozturk remarked, be in line with the goals of Interior 
Minister Atmar, who had spoken, most recently at the February 
4-5 NATO Defense Ministerial in Istanbul, of the need to send 
Afghan National Police outside Afghan given the shortage of 
training slots in Afghanistan.  Turkey could host Afghan 
trainees for a one-year course (that usually takes two years) 
in advanced police training.  Turkey would supply the 
dedicated facility, the firing ranges, the labs, and other 
installations.  The challenge, Ozturk continued, would be 
finding a donor to pay additional expenses such as housing, 
health care, food, and translators.  He noted that since 
EUPOL had failed to meet its target for the past two years, 
and currently filled only 272 of its targeted 400 slots in 
Afghanistan, he felt it would be appropriate to ask European 
nations to pick up these expenses.  Separately, Ozturk 
lamented that EUPOL had focused on what he characterized as 
"Turkey-bashing" (presumably a reference to 
EUPOL/Afghanistan,s failure to conclude a bilateral security 
agreement with Turkey) rather than owning up to the 
organization's own failure to meet the personnel targets it 
had set. 
 
JOWZSJAN PRT:  DAMN THE TORPEDOES 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶8. (C) Turkey is prepared to move forward in a matter of 
weeks with establishing its second PRT in Afghanistan in 
northern Jowzsjan Province, Ozturk stated, with or without 
German and Swedish support on provincial security 
arrangements.  "Time for talking is over," and final 
decisions need to be made, he said, adding that Turkey had 
been "cheated" in recent discussions on security cooperation 
in Berlin, and regards as unacceptable the German suggestion 
that its proposed Jowzsjan facility be designated a 
"provincial advisory reconstruction team."  Turkey will model 
its new PRT after Wardak, but Jowzsjan may be slightly 
larger, (there are 131 Turks in Wardak), with almost half the 
contingent comprised of civilians.  Turkish security forces 
will provide protection for the PRT and its staff, and will 
be able to draw on Turkish helicopter assets under Regional 
Command-Capital for medevac capability, but will not patrol 
in Jowzsjan (something Ozturk claimed neither the Germans or 
the Swedes do) nor engage in any offensive military action. 
Turkey will not ask for security assistance, unless, Ozturk 
said, it is forced to request a quick reaction force from 
ISAF in the event of a major attack, a contingency he clearly 
felt unlikely in the far north. 
 
KABUL 00000656  003 OF 003 
 
 
 
¶9. (C) Jowzsjan is impoverished and lacking insurgents, 
Ozturk emphasized, and there is much development work Turkey 
can contribute there.  Health care, road building, education 
are the main kinds of projects Turkey expects to undertake in 
the province.  Turkey hopes to open schools for girls, offer 
police training, and provide additional Operational Mentoring 
and Liaison Teams (OMLETs) in Jowzsjan.  Other projects under 
consideration are a vocational training center linked to an 
industrial park, and irrigation system improvements.  Ozturk 
insisted that ethnic connections in the north were not 
driving Turkey's interest in establishing its new PRT in 
Jowzsjan. 
 
¶10. (C) Comment:  Ambassador Ozturk made clear his country's 
ambitions for a more stable and secure, developed and 
prosperous Afghanistan.  We share these goals, together with 
the goal of seeing greater US-Turkey partnership on the 
ground.  In addition to the proposed cooperation on the 
hospital in Kabul, we are also working through the Turkish 
PRT in Wardak and at the Embassy to explore ways to support 
Turkish efforts to build capacity in Afghanistan's marble 
industry.  A USAID-hosted marble seminar in Herat later this 
month was rescheduled to avoid conflicting with a marble 
seminar in Turkey that would have prevented 10 Turkish 
companies from joining the Afghan event.  But as we build our 
partnership, we must work with the Turks to ensure we do not 
exceed their own capacity on the ground.  (This lunch, for 
example, required Turkish participants from Wardak and Mazar, 
as the Embassy's own staff is very small and junior.)  Even 
our Embassy pays high transaction costs to plan and implement 
projects with other donors.  We must, in the main, remain 
focused on our key partner, Afghanistan, especially at a time 
when our strategy calls for rapid progress on the ground. 
 
Eikenberry