Turkey Blocks German Delegation Airbase Trip over Armenian Genocide Row
June 23, 2016
Turkey is blocking the plans of a senior German defense official to visit Incirlik air base in July, appearing to be over the Germany’s Armenian Genocide resolution passed on June 2. (Photo: Reuters/Bundeswehr/F.Bärwald)
BERLIN (Reuters)””Turkey is blocking the plans of a senior German defense official to visit Incirlik air base in July, a spokesman for the German defense ministry said on Wednesday, in a sign of increasingly tense relations between the two NATO allies.
The spat appears to be over Germany’s Armenian Genocide resolution, Deutsche Welle reports.
Germany has about 250 soldiers stationed at the base in southern Turkey, along with six Tornado reconnaissance jets and a refueling plane, all of which are participating in a U.S.-led air campaign against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.
“Turkish officials do not currently approve of the travel plans,”
