German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she will continue pushing for a reversal of Turkey’s ban on Germany lawmakers to visit a Turkish base where German soldiers are stationed.
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Turkey accepts that many Christian Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire were killed in clashes with Ottoman forces during World War One but it denies that up to 1.5 million were killed and that the killings constitute a genocide.
The Turkish government last month banned German lawmakers from visiting the base.
“On the German side, the issue of Incirlik or sending soldiers is under the authority of the German parliament”.
During a Sunday interview with the ARD television channel, German Green Party co-leader Cem Özdemir (seen below) said that the situation has to change.
He said because of the differences in law, “the visit of the German delegation is not yet certain”. The troops are involved in missions aimed at fighting Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorists in Iraq.
The Turkish source said Merkel had raised the issue of the Incirlik airbase and had asked Erdogan to restore access for lawmakers, who approve all military spending and investment in infrastructure at the base. “We must continue to work on this, the solution is not yet there”, she said.
Andreas Scheuer, the general secretary the Christian Social Union (CSU) – the Bavarian sister party to Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) – has also called for access to the base.
Germany also has six Tornado reconnaissance jets and a refueling plane stationed at the base, which is located in southern Turkey east of Adana, close to the Mediterranean coast.
Germany on Monday insisted its lawmakers had the right to visit an airbase in Turkey despite Ankara’s opposition, in an escalating row between the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation partners. “There is no written statement on the reason.” .
The decision to ban politicians came just days after German announced it meant to spend €65 million (US$71.8 million) on upgrading its section of the facility.
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Germany sent more than 200 troops, six Tornado surveillance jets and a tanker aircraft to İncirlik late a year ago as part of the worldwide coalition. This was connected with the Armenian Genocide recognition resolution adopted by the Bundestag as a result of which the Turkish-German relations became tense. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan was angered by the broadcast of a satirical song about him on German television and in April launched legal action against the comedian who wrote it. Meanwhile Germany has been critical of a Turkish crackdown on journalists, academics and media outlets. However, he was forced to backtrack on an alleged statement picked up in the Turkish media, that he had supposedly invited Russian Federation to use the Incirlik Airbase. “I did not make any comment referring to Russian planes coming to the Incirlik Airbase”, Cavusoglu said, as cited by Reuters.
