Posted on 03/25/2003 5:57:25 PM PST by pkpjamestown
In 1995, Turkey was conducting intensive operations against the PKK terrorist organization, and the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) was involved in a weeks-long campaign in northern Iraq. Following this large military operation, a ‘site survey team’ of US military officers told the Turkish military that it would carry out a site survey in Iraq’s Serseng region. Ankara decided that high-ranking officers from the Turkish army would accompany the US military delegation, which got to northern Iraq from NATO’s Incirlik Airbase.
So a group of expert Turkish military officials went to Serseng with their colleagues from the US. The US was planning to establish a base in northern Iraq to be used as part of the Operation Poised Hammer. This was a project for establishing an extra field in the region, that is, an alternative to Incirlik. The place which the US delegation went to survey was an airport which had been built in 1991 but later bombed and abandoned. This site investigated then is now the Bamerni Airport. The US put forth certain reasons of technical and humanitarian purposes for transforming this airport into an airbase. The US delegation asserted that a base to be established in that region could be used for reconnaissance and might be necessary for urgent landings, and also that it could facilitate the speedy distribution of humanitarian aid.
However, Turkey replied that the establishment of an air base in that region would be dangerous. Ankara believed that it would be inappropriate due to the presence of the PKK in northern Iraq, the region’s close proximity to Iraqi forces, the great hazards of flight and the existing humanitarian distribution from Incirlik through helicopters.
This situation, which emerged in 1995, was evaluated at a meeting in Ankara as follows: ‘The US is targeting the establishment of an alternative to Incirlik Airbase. Permitting such a step would deprive Incirlik of its functions. This situation would mean Turkey’s losing a very important strategic opportunity.’
Eight years have passed since these developments. Today the US is bombing Iraq without using Incirlik Airbase. Today the US has turned Bamerni into a place which only helicopters can use but which could also conceivably be used for jet and transport planes in a limited fashion. Today the US has a ‘mobile military base’ in Shirkat, in the heart of the region. Today the US can also use a field in Diana, near Salahaddin, in northern Iraq.
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