The chief of NATO failed to persuade Turkey to shut down the alliance’s command base in the Aegean city of İzmir as part of its decision last year to scale down the number of command bases during his brief visit to Ankara on Monday.
A senior Turkish government official told Today’s Zaman under the condition of anonymity that Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s efforts to spur Turkish authorities to agree on the closure of the NATO Allied Air Component Command in İzmir failed utterly. NATO’s secretary-general had talks with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu on Monday during his four-hour visit to Ankara.
NATO is currently using its command base in İzmir to oversee its aerial mission as part of the operation against Libyan forces loyal to Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi, and Rasmussen plans the closure of the command base right after the operation finishes.
The senior official said Libya was also on the agenda of talks between Rasmussen and Turkish officials in Ankara, which came just days ahead of an informal meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Berlin on April 14-15.
In October last year at a meeting in Brussels during which Turkey was represented by Davutoğlu and Defense Minister Vecdi Gönül, leaders drafted plans to reform NATO’s command structure and cut the numbers of fixed headquarters to seven from 11, trimming staff numbers to 8,500 from around 13,000. Leaders would defer the politically sensitive decision on which bases to close until June this year. Bases in Portugal, Turkey and Italy are considered most under threat. The binding decision was made at NATO’s Lisbon summit but leaders did not mention which bases are to be closed.
Earlier, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates insisted that at least one command base should remain in Turkey, Turkish diplomatic sources told reporters, noting that Gates meant NATO’s Allied Air Component Command in İzmir, the main mission of which is to prepare to conduct the full range of air operations throughout NATO’s area of operations.
NATO earlier deactivated a command center in Eskişehir, a Central Anatolia city, while restructuring its command bases, in 2009.
Erdoğan reportedly told Rasmussen that NATO’s İzmir base could only be closed after Turkey becomes a European Union member, claiming that the base is the single component that maintains Turkey’s links with trans-Atlantic space.
NATO has two command bases in Germany and two in Italy. NATO’s other bases are located in Turkey, Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Albania.
NATO had 65 bases during the chaotic collapse of the Soviet Union but it has since reduced the number to 11. After Turkey was accepted as NATO member in 1952, the alliance established a command base in İzmir.
Turkey is expected to undertake diplomatic overtures to avert any possible consensus in the NATO defense ministers meeting in June, which will likely discuss closure of NATO command bases.
Another senior government official told Today’s Zaman that Turkey could use its authority, including its veto right, to stave off the shutdown of the İzmir command base in NATO’s June meeting.
Sources also said Erdoğan reiterated in talks with Rasmussen that the NATO operation should end quickly so as to pave the way for dialogue between Gaddafi loyalists and rebels.