Threat to Turkey over blocked visit
BERLIN yesterday slammed Ankara’s refusal to allow German politicians to visit a Nato base near Syria and warned it could move its troops elsewhere.
The German foreign ministry described Turkey’s latest ban on a visit to the Incirlik base in southern Turkey, used by the international coalition fighting the Islamic State group, as absolutely unacceptable.
Germany has about 250 military personnel stationed there, flying Tornado surveillance missions over Syria and refuelling flights for partner nations battling IS jihadists.
Chancellor Angela Merkel said Turkey’s position was unfortunate and that Germany, while continuing talks to resolve the issue, would also search for alternatives to Incirlik, including in Jordan.
A defence ministry spokesman said Jordan offered the best conditions after Berlin had also looked at Kuwait and Cyprus when Turkey first denied such visits to German MPs for several months last year.
The spokesman cautioned, however, that any move would involve shifting hundreds of containers of materiel and would take several months.
Turkey may have rejected the latest MPs visit because of anger over Germany granting political asylum to some of its military officials after last year’s failed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, foreign ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer said.
Merkel said that, since Germany’s military missions always require parliamentary mandates, “it is absolutely essential that our politicians visit our soldiers”.
More than 400 Turkish military personnel, diplomats, judges, officials and their relatives have sought political asylum in Germany.
They feared being caught up in Turkey’s crackdown against those Erdogan blamed for the coup.