[ARG] Call to Syria

[Naio90]

The argentine Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs would privately request a videoconference with his syrian counterpart. The argentine ambassador to Syria would also be taking part in the meeting.

Zach5421

 

[Zach5421]

Forouk al-Sharaa would take notice of the video conference request. Since he was new to the job he would have to quickly check to see who it was from as he was not familiar with many of his counterparts especially from the non-regional nations. He would have his assistance close and lock the door and answer the call.

"Hello Minister, what do I owe the pleasure of this call?"

Naio90

 

[Naio90]

The argentine Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gonzalo Castellani, would nod to the argentine ambassador accompanying him and start the private videoconference.

"Minister Al-Sharaa, thank you for accepting our request for this videoconference. Let me introducemyself, I'm Gonzalo Castellani, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Argentine Republic. Here with me is Ambassador Guido Carillo, recently appointed to the argentine embassy in Damascus and who will soon be travelling to your country to start his mission.

The intention of this call is to establish a line of communications between our countries, and following our historic South-South Cooperation policy, offer our assistance to consolidate your nation as an regional power and active international player.

Argentina has close historic ties with Syria. Not only are we blessed with a big group of syrian inmigrants and their descendents living here, but even our last President, Mr. Carlos Saul Menem, was of syrian origin."

Zach5421

 

[Zach5421]

"Minister, I appreciate your call and it is good to meet both you and Ambassador Guido Carillo, we are very excited to have him working here in Damascus with us. I am sure the President will be most ecstatic to find a friend in your nation especially one we naturally have close ties too. I understand that your nation is offering its assistance but I would like to know how Argentina plans on providing its assistance?"



Naio90

 

[Naio90]

"I am happy to hear your Government shares our vision of a prosperous bilateral cooperation between our nations.

The Argentine Republic has seen an unprecedented growth in recent times. So much that we are one of the richest nations in the world, fielding perhaps the biggest and best equipped armed forces and displaying a considerable diplomatic leverage. This, accompanied by international agreements that allow us to produce and procure top of the line russian and argentine military hardware. Among other... perks.

Obviously we would like to offer the tools at our disposal to your Government, but first we would need to know a little about your foreign policy and immediate goals, as well as what the priorities would be, so that we can identify how we best to assist you."

Zach5421

 

[Zach5421]

Forouk al-Sharaa would take a second to think of what he had been told. If the Argentinians were as powerful as they say they could prove a valuable friend. They also seemed to strong ties to the Russian Federation, if only economically it would still be a plus given the historical relationship between the Russians and Syrians during the 20th Century. Still he had to be careful Argentina had been a member of the former UN and voted for a UN resolution as a non-permanent member of the security council which forced recognition of Israel sovereignty on the Arab states in the aftermath of the 6 Day War.

"Your growth and prosperity are one to be admired that is for sure. Our Foreign Policy at the current time is survival, we as a nation are coming out of the worst part of our history to date and we have historical enemies both to our East in Iraq and to our West with Israel which still holds Syrian Land in the form of the Golan Heights. Our Immediate goals are 1. The rebuilding of our Economy and stabilization of our society, 2. The build up of our military to be able to defend itself from our historical foes with the possibility of a two front war caused by either side seeing a conflict with one of the two as an opportunity to strike and finally 3. Grow into a regional power if not THE regional power in the Middle East."


Naio90

 

[Naio90]

"The Middle East is a very delicate area, as we all know. And Argentina does recognize Israel as a sovereign state. However, with this said, we do share the syrian position that the Golan Heights are actually under israely military occupation and we do not recognize the unilateral annexation from 1981. On this matter, you can count on argentine diplomatic support. As for Iraq, aside from being unable to field a table Government, capable of conducting serious foreign relations in the last few years, it was subject of a foreign, extra continental military intervention, involving states such as the US and the UK. This obviously means that its itnernal situation remains highly volatile, and you do well in keeping an eye on them, as instability can easily penetrate your borders.

Regarding your "objectives" of survival, we have gained a lot of practical know-how and experience in the development of infrastructure and expansion of our economy, issues which we would be delighted to share with Damascus. However, expanding an economy takes time, we are talking of several months to see serious resultas. Obviously this can be accompanied by investments in other areas, such as military build up, but obviously one thing will drain resources from the other, inevitably.

This know-how can be accompanied by foreign investment. We could talk to the argentine private sector and look for companies that are willing to invest in developing syrian infrastructure, such as ports and oil wells.

Finally, specifically looking at the military modernization, we recommend you look into the RusAr Agreement, which remains in effect and allows for argentina to commercialize russian military hardware directly to the customer.

Ah, before I forget, my secretary asked me to check if this conversation is encrypted on your end as well. One can never be safe enough these days..."

Zach5421

 

[Zach5421]

"I assure you that this communication is in fact encrypted. Once our system connected your encrypted call it ensured it went encrypted."

"We appreciate your support on the issue for the Golan Heights. I can assure you that Syria must be patient before it can consider any sort of discussion on the area."

"I highly request if your nation is able to provide any sort of economic recovery strategies that they be sent to our Ministry of Economy and Trade, they are currently working to bring about growth in the economy. They have already introduced a plan to invest in national businesses to encourage growth as I understand it. I can also say that Syria would welcome any outside investment in our civilian market."

"I do not know much about the military plan as of now. I do know that the Ministry of Defense is preparing a roadmap for building the force and they are already looking into acquisition strategies do to our lack of a domestic defense industry. I will ensure to pass on your recommendation to the ministry."

"The thing I must ask going forward is Argentina's relationship with other nations. It seems based on your RusAr Agreement that relations with Russia are strong but we are still not sure about many nations Especially in the European Geopolitical Environment. I am going to need to provide information to the President on the state of the world and this information would be of great interest to him."

 

[Naio90]

"If it is something of your interest, I could request for an experts team to be assemble, and to travel to Syria and meet with relevant government officials and private sector representatives to discuss potential plans of investment and to share our knowledge on developing infrastructure. They could do a field study and determine, what to their expertise would be should be your priorities.

Same for RusAr, tell your Ministry of Defence that they can contact them anytime for information or any inquiry they might have.

As for the international affairs, I must say that Argentina's position is rather unique. We are not a member of the Global Assembly, since we determined that said organization is very permeable to national agendas of certain influential members. With a little bit of bad luck you can find yourself getting sanctioned for things that never happened or that were totally manipulated. We prefer to work with the GA independently and just voluntarily agree to the Resolutions we think are fair and just to all, like we did with the Antarctic Crisis.

This obviously brings me to our international relations in general. We have fluent relations with nations around the globe, obviously stronger ones with nations closer to us geographically, like Brazil, but also with nations further away, such as the Republic of Korea, whose president is currently in Buenos Aires for high level meetings. India, Russia and Canada are also some of our more frequent contacts. Moscow is special in this system, because we have strategic agreements such as RusAr in place. Sadly, due to their internal troubles (mostly financial), they haven't been that active internationalyl speaking in the last few months, but they remain a key ally of us.

On the other side, I must speak of the Kingdom of Sweden, with whom we had direct confrontations to the point of loss of life. COuple of years ago they attempted to unilaterally annex and occupy the whole antarctic continent, something we obviously could not allow, for our own interests and humanity itself. So we clashed... They also have a very arrogant way of conducting foreign politics, and tend to believe they have some kind of "moral high ground", while at the same time disregarding GA Resolutions -Strategic Arms Register- and ignoring non-favorable ICJ rulings -scamming the Arab Republic of Egypt-. Sweden is the founder of the so called "Nordic Council", a group of nations, mostly scandinavian, that have more or less aligned with Stockholm. While we are weary of their intentions, we do not have any particular conflict with most of its members nations, specially the Republic of Korea.

Another whole issue is the United Kingdom, and their continous military occupation of the Malvinas Archipielago, but that is a story for another day."

Zach5421

 

[Zach5421]

"We can most certainly accept a team to provide us with the knowledge they have pertaining to this area. Please contact the Minister of Economy and Trade to coordinate. I will also let the Defense Minister know to reach out to the people at RusAr"

"I have heard about this Nordic Counsel and will keep an eye out for them. I know members have already contacted us and wonder what their agenda might be with us. The concerning history you have told me will ensure we are keeping an eye out."

"Well sir I think this has been a most important discussion and look forward to a future working with you. Was there anything else you wished to discuss?"

Naio90

 

[Naio90]

"I will instruct my Chief of Cabinet to assemble a team of experts, consisting of representatives of the argentine Ministry of Economy and Finances, the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure and selected individuals from the private sector, in order for them to travel to Damascus and meet with your people to analyze the sitaution and share our experience and knowledge.

As for RusAr, I will let the government liaison there know that they will be receiving a communication from the syrian Government and to give it priority treatment.

For the moment this would be it. I would like to discuss in the coming weeks the possibility of establishing trade routes between our countries, but I understand your Government imght have more pressing issues to address first."

Zach5421

 

[Zach5421]

"Outstanding, we again appreciate the efforts of your government to assist us and we hope to be able to return the favor at some point".

"We will definitely look into establishing trade routes with your country in the near future most likely after your team has arrived and help us decide on the best course of action economically."

"We again appreciate greatly you reaching out to us and look forward to a strong relationship with your nation."

At that the Foreign Minister would smile. nod and cut the communication link.

Naio90

 

[Naio90]

"Sure is! We will rmeain in touch over private written communications. We will reach out to you soon with information on the experts team.

Again, a pleasure talking to you, and good luck navigating this first months in Governenment."

The argentine Deputy Minister would politely say farewell and end the communication.

Zach5421