The report, termed "sensitive but unclassified," said Turkey has based
its refusal to grant diplomatic status to the American military personnel to
a 1954 NATO treaty. Turkey was said to have been the only country that
refused diplomatic status for ODC, which has been monitoring goods that
enter Turkey from neighboring Iran and Syria.
"This Turkish position has as much as 25 years of precedent, and will
not be easily altered," the report said.
In April 2009, the U.S. embassy in Ankara reviewed and revalidated the
memorandum of understanding with the Defense Department regarding military
personnel in Turkey. The current MoU asserted that ODC was not under the
security responsibility of the ambassador.
So far, the State Department has not sought to change the status of ODC
members to that of diplomats. The report said the change in status was
crucial to ODC employees and their families.
"Embassy Ankara should develop and implement a plan to convince Turkish
authorities that the Office of Defense Cooperation employees and dependents
in Turkey be entitled to diplomatic status under the Vienna Convention on
Diplomatic Relations rather than under the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization Status of Forces Agreement of 1954," the report said.