Germany to invest €58 mln in Turkey’s Incirlik air base

PanARMENIAN.Net - German newspaper Der Spiegel on Tuesday, September 6 said defense ministry states secretary Gerd Hoofe had budgeted 58 million euros ($63 million) for a new runway and a portable command center at Turkey’s Incirlik air base, Deutsche Welle reports.

Particularly center-left Social Democrats (SPD) in Germany's federal parliament, which has an ultimate say over German Bundeswehr deployments, had until a week ago demanded that the German mission should be ended because of Turkish strictures.

Since June, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government has banned visits by German parliamentarians to Incirlik in reaction to a Bundestag resolution in May that recognized the Armenian Genocide of 1915.

On Sunday at the G20 summit in China, Chancellor Angela Merkel had bilateral talks with Erdogan and later intimated that the travel ban could soon be lifted.

Der Spiegel said the German Bundeswehr wanted the investment urgently because the mission, which began earlier this year, with its some 240 personnel, has had to park its Tornado surveillance jets at U.S. sites at Incirlik, sleep in provisional quarters - called the Patriot Village located near noisy runways - and depend on allies for technical support.

Of 58 million euros, 26 million would fund the laying of a new airfield for the Tornados and appropriate Bundeswehr accommodation for soldiers. A further 30 million euros, awaiting budgetary clearance, would be spent to erect a command center. For this, foundations would be necessary, costing a further two million, Der Spiegel reported.

A defense ministry spokesman added that the transportable command center, comprising sophisticated equipment fitted inside large containers, was a useful purchase anyway, independent of Incirlik.

Currently, stationed at Incirlik are six Bundeswehr Tornados and an Airbus A310 MRTT used for mid-air to refuel the jets. Bundeswehr ground crews make repairs in daytime temperatures well over 30 degrees Centigrade.