Germany says may move soldiers from Turkey if its MPs denied access
ANKARA/BERLIN: Germany could move troops now based in Turkey to another country if Ankara persists in denying German lawmakers permission to visit them, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday, highlighting renewed strains between the NATO allies.
Some 250 German troops are stationed at Incirlik Air Force Base, contributing to NATO’s mission targeting Daesh militants in neighboring Syria. Turkish Foreign Ministry sources told Reuters a visit by German parliamentarians would not be appropriate at this time, without elaborating.
Turkey similarly refused access to German parliamentarians late last year, though that visit eventually went ahead.
“We will continue to talk with Turkey, but in parallel we will have to explore other ways of fulfilling our mandate,” Merkel told reporters on Monday. “That means looking at alternatives to Incirlik, and one alternative among others is Jordan.”
A German military survey team will visit Jordan in coming days to look at potential bases there, government sources said. Jordan is the preferred site, although facilities in Cyprus and Kuwait are also possible, they said.
For historic reasons and to prevent abuse of power, the Bundeswehr Army is controlled by the German Parliament, not the government, meaning that lawmakers have the right to inspect its activities, including outside the country. A spokesman for the German foreign minister said it was “completely unacceptable” for Turkey to keep members of the parliamentary defense committee from visiting their own soldiers.
Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel will raise the issue with colleagues from other NATO governments in Washington on Tuesday, the spokesman added.
German and NATO military officials still hope to avert a wider rift with Turkey given the importance of NATO facilities there, including a powerful radar that supports the Aegis Ashore missile defense site in Romania.
Moving German troops from Incirlik could also result in a two-month interruption in the surveillance flights they are now conducting from the Turkish base, a government source said.
Serhat Guvenc, an international relations professor at Kadir Has University in Istanbul, thinks that Germany’s warning of relocating its troops to Kuwait or Cyprus is not a mere rhetorical menace.
“Sooner or later Germany will make such a decision. Hosting such a strategic airbase like Incirlik in the antiDaesh campaign was the only trump card for Turkey and it has been overplayed,” Guvenc told Arab News.
And, consequent to all the conflicts between the NATO allies and Turkey over the use of Incirlik airbase especially during the last two years, other alternatives are now on the table, Guvenc noted.
“In the end, Turkey has a considerable nuisance value since March 1, 2003, when the Turkish Parliament rejected a government motion permitting the deployment of US troops to operate from Turkish bases,” he said.
According to Guvenc, although alternatives such as Kuwait or Cyprus cannot have a similar strategic value like Incirlik, the political cost of insisting on a base in Turkey is increasing day by day.
“I think that Germany takes a chance in assuming the logistical costs of relocating its troops to another country,” he added.
However, Guvenc also pointed out to an often-ignored side of the story: “What will be the fate of German-made Leopard 2 tanks — mainly used in anti-Daesh operations in Syria — in Turkey if Germany retreats from Incirlik airbase especially considering the new potential military campaigns of Turkey into Syrian territories following the ‘Euphrates Shield’ Campaign?”