Turkey OKs Expanded U.S. Use of Key Air Base

After months of hesitation, Turkey has agreed in principle to allow the U.S. expanded use of a strategic air base as a major hub for nonlethal cargo deliveries to Iraq and Afghanistan, Turkish and U.S. officials confirmed today.

“We have reached agreement for the cargo hub on mutually acceptable terms,” said a senior Turkish official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman said, “Turkish and U.S. military officials have almost completed work on the technical details of the arrangement.”

Under the agreement, U.S. cargo would be flown to the Incirlik air base near the southern Turkish city of Adana on civilian charter planes and then transferred to military cargo planes for delivery to Iraq and Afghanistan.

That would make delivery of supplies to both countries less costly and more efficient, the U.S. official said.

The base has been used during and since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq to refuel U.S. Air Force jets en route to Turkey’s southern neighbor. The U.S. sees Turkish approval for expanded facilities as a positive if inadequate step toward improving ties between the two North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies. Although the request was made in June 2004, Turkey “did not respond until now,” the U.S. official said.

Hopes for a deal rose last week when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a strong critic of U.S. policy in Iraq, told parliament that “the United States is the main axis of our foreign policy.”

In his warmest description of relations with the U.S. since taking power more than two years ago, Erdogan added: “We can never forget America’s support” for Turkey’s efforts to join the European Union.

Erdogan does not need permission from parliament to allow U.S. use of the air base.

Relations have been rocky since the lead-up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. At that time, parliament rejected a bill authorizing thousands of U.S. troops to use Turkish territory to open a second front against Saddam Hussein’s forces in northern Iraq.

The U.S. later rebuffed an offer by Turkey to send troops to help police Sunni Muslim strongholds in central Iraq after Baghdad’s interim government voiced strong opposition to any Turkish military presence.

Relations further deteriorated last year when Erdogan called Iraqi insurgents “martyrs” and members of his party described U.S. actions in Iraq as “genocide.”

Analysts say the government’s rhetoric was aimed at appeasing unprecedented anti-American sentiment in Turkey fueled in part by Turkish media coverage of U.S. military behavior in Iraq. “The government sees itself squeezed between the U.S. and the Islamic world,” said Cuneyt Ulsever, a liberal commentator for the Hurriyet daily newspaper.

Washington’s continued reluctance to take military action against separatist Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq is another constant thorn. Turkish anger has deepened amid escalating violence between Turkish forces and the rebels, who say they have killed 50 Turkish soldiers in the last 10 days and claimed responsibility for two bomb attacks last week in Istanbul and the Aegean tourist resort of Kusadasi, which killed a policeman.

But some Western diplomats also blame members of Erdogan’s circle of advisors for the chill. “There are those who are trying to persuade Erdogan that Turkey would be better off leading the Muslim world than being part of the European Union or a U.S. ally,” said a European diplomat.

Hilmi Ozkok, Turkey’s determinedly pro-Western chief of general staff, and Abdullah Gul, the country’s moderate foreign minister, have played key roles behind the scenes in securing approval for the cargo hub, Turkish officials close to the negotiations confirmed.

U.S. threats to establish the military logistics center either in neighboring Bulgaria or the Mediterranean island of Cyprus also jolted Turkey into a decision, said Murat Yetkin, a veteran observer of Turkish-American relations.

Others believe that Erdogan approved the deal to help stave off a U.S. congressional resolution recognizing the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey during World War I as genocide and to secure a meeting with President Bush when he travels to the United States next month.

The president is now expected to receive Erdogan, a Turkish official said.