(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) Germany will recall its troops from ncirlik Airbase in Turkey ifAnkaracontinues to block lawmakers from visiting its soldiers there, the vice chancellor announced.
'TheGermanarmy answers to parliament,” Social Democrat leader and Deputy Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel told the regional newspaper Mitteldeutsche Zeitung.
'And if parliament cannot visit its army, then the army cannot stay there. This is absolutely clear,” Gabriel said, adding that all 250 soldiers at the base - part ofNATOoperations against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) - could be pulled out.
Ankara strongly reacted to a resolution passed by Germany";s parliament in June that names the 1915 killings of Armenians by Ottoman forces as 'genocide,” and has deniedGermanMPs access to the ncirlik base.
ChancellorAngela Merkelsaid on July 12 thatGermanMPs must be allowed to visit soldiers at the base, adding that she would try to resolve the issue with the Turkish government.
Turkey and Germany will continue to talk about a potential visit ofGermanMPs to the ncirlik air base, where some 400Germansoldiers are deployed, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmu said July 11, citing legal technicalities rather than political disagreements.
'There is a difference between the legal frameworks [of the two sides]. For us, the ncirlik base is a military issue. On Germany";s side, deploying soldiers to ncirlik - or to anywhere else - and monitoring the deployed soldiers, comes under the responsibility of theGermanParliament. So in this sense visiting a base whereGermansoldiers have been deployed is a political issue for Germany,” Kurtulmu told reporters.