German MPs call for withdrawing troops from Turkish airbase
German members of parliament say the country’s troops serving at Turkey’s Incirlik airbase should be recalled if Ankara continues to deny parliamentarians access to the compound.
Some 250 German troops are stationed at the base, along with six Tornado reconnaissance jets and a refueling plane, as part of the US-led coalition allegedly battling the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in Syria and Iraq.
Ties between Berlin and Ankara have been strained over the last few weeks after the German parliament approved a resolution recognizing the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks a century ago as "genocide."
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.
"As lawmakers who send soldiers to places, we must know where they are, how they are and be able to talk to the soldiers. If that is not possible in Turkey then the soldiers must come back to Germany," he said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has also called on Turkey to grant MPs access to the base, as approving military spending and investment in its infrastructure is among their responsibilities.
"A way must be found for the lawmakers to visit the soldiers. We must continue to work on this, the solution is not yet there," she said during an interview.
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.
"As a result of his behavior, Turkish President Erdogan is risking the withdrawal of the German army," he said.
Armenians say up to 1.5 million Armenian Christians were systematically slaughtered in eastern Turkey through mass killing, forced relocations and starvation, a process that began in 1915 and took over several years during World War I and the breakup of the Ottoman Empire.
Ankara rejects the term “genocide” and says 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians, and at least as many Turks perished between 1915 and 1917, in what the Turkish government sees as the “casualties” of World War I. Only a few countries, including France and Russia, officially recognize the events as genocide.
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