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A statement issued by the Turkish Ministry of Defense regarding the ownership of the Incirlik base and all the weapons systems at its disposal! The announcement came as a blow because US Pentagon officials themselves did not expect any Turkish moves or statements involving the Incirlik base. And yet the announcement of the Turkish Ministry of Defense does not simply involve the Incirlik base but refers to the Turkey-US Defense Treaty that was first revealed by WarNews247 a few days ago. The Turkish media clearly state that this is Ankara’s response to the recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

ANKARA: A provocative live-fire drill by the Turkish navy off the coast of Cyprus was branded illegal on Saturday, as reports emerged that the US is drawing up plans to withdraw from the strategic Incirlik air force base. “We don’t know what’s going to happen to Incirlik,” Ron Johnson, the US senator who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee for Europe, told the Washington Examiner. “We hope for the best, but we have to plan for the worst.” US withdrawal would be a blow to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, suggesting that the US no longer trusts him. “I think,...

Turkish autocrat Recep Tayyip Erdogan is coming to Washington, DC, on May 16 loaded for bear.  He has an ambitious agenda and apparently feels he can achieve it all because he holds “trump” cards against the President of the United States. Erdogan and his proxies have publicly said they want to convince the United States to jettison its budding alliance with the Syrian Democratic Union (PYD) and its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Kurdish group that has become the tip of the spear in the fight against ISIS in Syria. On this point, they will encounter resistance...

A group of pro-Erdoğan Turkish lawyers has applied to the Adana Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office for the arrest of members of the US military at İncirlik Airbase in Adana for their alleged cooperation with the Gülen movement, according to a report by the Cumhuriyet daily on Friday. According to the report, lawyers working for the the Association for Social Justice and Aid (Toplumsal Adalet ve Yardımlaşma Derneği in Turkish, or TAY-DER), a front NGO that was set up on June 15, 2016 and formally registered a month later with the support of senior government officials, including some in the judiciary...

The United States has transported the Armag weapons vault from Turkey’s Incirlik Air base to another facility, YeniSafak reported. According to the source, a 40-ton portable weapons vault was transported to another country via a C-5M Super Galaxy transport aircraft. There has been no official explanation over the transfer yet.

A US Air Force MQ-1 Predator drone has crashed in southeast Turkey, the Incirlik Air Base has confirmed. This is the second drone crash in four days involving Predators flown from the joint US-Turkish base near the Syrian border. Monday’s crash happened around 11:50 am local time (0850 GMT), the 39th Air Base Wing said in a statement. No further information about the incident was made available. Another Predator crashed shortly after taking off from Incirlik on Thursday evening, ending up in a field near the city of Adana. That drone was retrieved by US and Turkish officials, the 39th...

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel (left) and Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu Germany will have to pull its forces out of the Incirlik air force base in southern Turkey because of Turkish government restrictions on German lawmakers seeking to visit troops there, Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said on Monday.Gabriel was speaking after a meeting in Ankara with his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, which had aimed to address the standoff over Incirlik and other diplomatic tensions between the two NATO allies.“My Turkish colleague explained to me that in the current situation, Turkey is not able to allow every visit by German...

Speaking at a seminar on the role of the Kurds in the fight against ISIS, German parliamentarian Andrej Hunko asked “Is the information gathered in İncirlik given to ISIS over Turkey? We have serious doubts on this matter.” A seminar titled 'Kurds as a regional factor in the fight against ISIS' was held at the Cultural Diplomacy Institute in German capital Berlin yesterday. 'WE UNDERSTOOD PKK BETTER AFTER THE ISIS ATTACK' Speaking at the seminar, German parliamentarian Andrej Hunko stated on behalf of the Left Party (Die Linke), the leading opposition party in the German Federal Parliament, that they stood...

While Angela Merkel is busy sowing the seeds of the next cold war between Germany and the Trump administration (and therefore the US, if only for the next three and a half years), a troubling flashpoint for Germany continues to grow in Turkey where on Tursday, Turkey’s foreign minister said it is not possible to allow German lawmakers to visit troops stationed at Turkey’s Incirlik air base now, although he said Ankara may reconsider if it sees “positive steps” from Berlin. It was not immediately clear just what Turkey’s “demands” or expectations, monetary or otherwise, were from Merkel for it...

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned that Berlin may pull its troops from Turkey following a recent deterioration in relations. The chancellor’s latest warning comes after Turkey denied visas to German lawmakers who wanted to visit troops at the Incirlik air base, located near Adana in south Turkey. “We will continue to talk with Turkey, but in parallel we will have to explore other ways of fulfilling our mandate,” Merkel said at a press conference on Monday. “That means looking at alternatives to İncirlik, and one alternative among others is Jordan,” she said. …

Several US engineering teams are working round the clock to build a big new air base in northern Syria after completing the expansion of another four. They are all situated in the Syrian borderland with Iraq, military forces report. This was going on over the weekend as senators, news correspondents and commentators were outguessing each other over whether the US missile attack on the Syrian Shayrat air base, in retaliation for the Assad regime’s chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun, was a one-off or the start of a new series. As the White House parried those questions, the Trump administration was...

Pro-government Turkish daily Yenisafak, has claimed that Turkey will use the Incirlik Airbase as a bargaining chip to stop the US from backing the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), a prominent force in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) leading the Raqqa operation.According to Yenisafak, “Turkey is prepared for possible scenarios with the YPG. Considering the logistical contribution to US air operations, the utilisation permit of Incirlik Airbase is an important leverage to convince the US against working with the YPG.”Incirlik Air base, located in the Incirlik province of the southern city of Adana, has strategic importance to the US. Most of the US’ air operations...

On Wednesday, America's Vice President Joe Biden will arrive in Turkey. His main mission is to smooth things over with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is getting angrier with the United States by the day. The reason Erdogan is so angry with the United States is, Erdogan says, that America still provides a safe haven to Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, who Ankara accuses of being behind the failed military coup on July 15. Both before, but especially after the coup, the Turkish government has accused Gülen, who lives in Pennsylvania, of being a terrorist leader comparable to ISIS self-declared...

Russia is pressing Turkey for ­access to a key airbase used by the US as it tries to extend its ­influence in the Middle East. The American-built Incirlik base, about 100km from the ­Syrian border, is used by NATO and has about 50 US tactical ­nuclear warheads stored on site. A senior Russian politician said allowing Russian jets and bombers to use it would be a “logical continuation” of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s efforts to rebuild Turkey’s relations with the Kremlin. “It just remains to come to an agreement with Erdogan that we get the NATO base Incirlik as our...

An obscure website published a vague report Thursday making the dramatic claim that relations between Washington and Ankara had deteriorated so badly that the United States had begun moving nuclear weapons from Turkey to Romania. The problem is that there doesn’t seem to be any basis at all for the report, which alleged B61 nuclear weapons were on their way to Romania’s Deveselu base. Romania’s defense ministry promptly denied it and experts dismissed the idea as illogical for technical and other reasons.

Russia is pressing Turkey for access to a key airbase used by the US as it tries to extend its influence in the Middle East. The American-built Incirlik base, about 65 miles from the Syrian border, is used by Nato and has about 50 US nuclear warheads stored on site. A senior Russian politician said that allowing Russian jets and bombers to use it would be a logical continuation of President Erdogan’s efforts to rebuild Turkey’s relations with the Kremlin. “It just remains to come to an agreement with Erdogan that we get the Nato base Incirlik as [our] primary…

Over the past month, ever since the "failed" Turkish coup, there has been a dramatic, and surprising, deterioration in the of Turkey with various European states, most notably Austria and Germany, as well as with the US, and NATO in general. This was confirmed once again earlier today when Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu lashed out at NATO, in an interview with Russian Sputnik, saying the alliance is not fully cooperating with Ankara. More importantly, he hinted that Turkey would consider military cooperation with Russia. In the interview, Cavusoglu said that Ankara has become alarmed at the lack of willingness...

EXCLUSIVE/ Two independent sources told EurActiv.com that the US has started transferring nuclear weapons stationed in Turkey to Romania, against the background of worsening relations between Washington and Ankara . According to one of the sources, the transfer has been very challenging in technical and political terms. “It’s not easy to move 20+ nukes,” said the source, on conditions of anonymity. According to a recent report by the Simson Center, since the Cold War, some 50 US tactical nuclear weapons have been stationed at Turkey’s Incirlik air base, approximately 100 kilometres from the Syrian border. During the failed coup in...

"The nukes in Incirlik must be handed over to Turkey. Or else, Turkey should take control of them."

Dozens of US nuclear weapons stored at a Turkish air base near Syria are at risk of being captured by "terrorists or other hostile forces," a Washington think tank claimed Monday. Critics have long been alarmed by America's estimated stockpile of about 50 nuclear bombs at Incirlik in southern Turkey, just 70 miles (110 kilometers) from the border with war-torn Syria. The issue took on fresh urgency last month following the attempted coup in Turkey, in which the base's Turkish commander was arrested on suspicion of complicity in the plot.