Last May, aircrafts in Konya displayed NATO flags so the German MPs could visit the German soldiers stationed with the AWACS aircrafts. But the Turkish state has disregarded the NATO mission and cancelled the visit planned for next Monday.

After a group of MPs from the Federal Defense Commission’s various appeals to visit the German troops in the Incirlik Air Base were repeatedly rejected, the Merkel government decided to pull the troops from the base. German soldiers stationed in Incirlik for the Tornada scout aircrafts as part of the anti-ISIS coalition are being transferred to Jordan in phases.

The AWACS aircrafts now seem to be on a similar path. Last May, a decree was passed to display NATO flags on the AWACS aircrafts so Germany could visit their troops in Konya without permission from Ankara whenever they wanted.

The Erdoğan regime thus said they could greenlight the German MPs’ visits to Konya, but the Turkish state didn’t keep their promise to NATO and cancelled the German MPs’ visit planned for next Monday at the last minute.

Ankara refusing the right of Germany, a NATO member state, to visit their own troops in a NATO base in Konya created a new crisis between Ankara, Berlin and Brussels. The NATO headquarters in Brussels sprung into action to make Ankara give the German MPs another date for the visit, while German opposition and government party MPs started to demand the troops in Konya to be withdrawn as well.

NATO SECRETARY GENERAL INTERVENES FOR A SOLUTION

According to information leaked to the German press, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is trying to convince Germany and Turkey to find a new “common ground”. But Merkel’s social democratic coalition partners in the government and Die Linke say the troops in Konya should immediately be withdrawn.

Social Democratic Party Group Chair Thomas Oppermann said, “These soldiers should not stay in Konya as long as the right to visit the troops is withheld from the MPs” while Merkel’s CDU takes a cautious approach towards the crisis. They consider Turkey barring the visit to Konya as a countermove by Erdoğan and imply they “shouldn’t fall for the tricks”. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited Hamburg for the G-20 Summit last week and his demand to hold rallies with his supporters in Germany was refused by the Merkel government. AKP’s ministers were later barred from holding July 15 activities. Ankara cancelling the Konya visit is seen as the Erdoğan regime’s revenge.

AIRCRAFTS IN KONYA DON’T BELONG TO GERMANY

But the AWACS aircrafts in the Konya base don’t belong to the German army. They display the NATO flag, but only the soldiers stationed with the aircrafts are German. According to Spiegel Online, there are 10 to 20 German soldiers stationed in this base, while the aircrafts themselves are listed under the NATO base in Germany’s Geilenkirchen town.

If the German troops withdraw from Konya, NATO’s mission to protect the region will be under threat, as the AWACS aircrafts have a range of 400 kilometers to detect aircrafts, making them one of NATO’s most important defense mechanisms.

In June 2016, Germany’s Federal Parliament passed a decree with a majority of the votes recognizing the 1915 mass killing of Armenians as a “genocide”, and Turkish authorities and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan started to say they won’t allow the MPs who voted in favor of the decree into the country and to bar German MPs from visiting the Incirlik Air Base.