Cablegate: Turkey's Continuing Outreach to Iraqi Political

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

170931Z May 05

UNCLAS ANKARA 002791

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PREL PGOV TU IZ
SUBJECT: TURKEY'S CONTINUING OUTREACH TO IRAQI POLITICAL
PARTIES

1. MFA announced on May 11 that its pre-election training
program in electoral politics and governance for interested
Iraqi political parties would continue. The text of the
announcement is at para 2. At this point, each group that
applies will come to Turkey separately. Although not
mentioned in the announcement, the first group to participate
since the January 30 elections was the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan (PUK).

2. Begin informal Embassy translation of MFA announcement:

In cooperation with the High Election Council and TODAIE
(Turkish Middle East and Public Administration Institution) a
short-term program was organized in Ankara on election
systems, democratic regime institutions and implementations
for Iraqi political parties and groups before the 2005
elections.

Upon the request of various Iraqi political parties, it was
decided to organize a similar activity following formation of
the Iraqi Transitional Parliament and Government after the
elections.

Within this Framework, representatives of Iraqi political
parties and groups will come to Turkey for a period of 1 week
as of Monday May 9th 2005 to visit the political parties
having representation at the TGNA (Turkish Grand National
Assembly) and to attend seminars to be organized at the
TODAIE, the Constitutional Court, the High Election Council
and the (Ankara University) Faculty of Political Science.

To date, the Iraqi Turkmen Front, Supreme Council of Islamic
Revolution in Iraq, Islamic Party of Iraq and the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan have applied to benefit from the mentioned
program.

It is foreseen that the said program is open to participation
of all of the Iraqi political groups participating in and
supporting the democratic process.

End text.

3. Baghdad minimized considered.

EDELMAN

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