Cablegate: Turkey Accedes to the Ottawa Convention On

This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

051128Z Nov 03

UNCLAS ANKARA 006910

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PARM TU
SUBJECT: TURKEY ACCEDES TO THE OTTAWA CONVENTION ON
LANDMINES

1. During a meeting on another topic, MFA Head of Department
for Disarmament Affairs confirmed to PolMilOff that Turkey
had deposited its instrument of ratification for the Ottawa
convention simultaneously with Greece on September 25, 2003.
Meric reminded PolMilOff that Turkey was party to every
disarmament and nonproliferation treaty for which it was
eligible. Nevertheless he was unable to update PolMilOff on
the status of demining along the Syrian and Greek borders,
initiatives that had been undertaken in an effort to improve
relations with these two neighbors.

2. Separately, we learned from other sources at MFA that,
although an intended benefit of demining along the Syrian
border was to improve relations with Damascus, the demining
is a unilateral action that had been previously announced but
lacked funding. The GOT's announcement (again) of this
project was due to the recent identification of funding.
EDELMAN

© Scoop Media