“The Turkish government has closed its airspace to military aircraft, and as a result air operations at Incirlik Air Base have been halted at this time,” spokesperson Peter Cook said in a statement.
“Officials are working with the Turks to resume air operations there as soon as possible. In the meantime, US Central Command is adjusting flight operations in the counter-ISIL campaign to minimize any effects on the campaign. US facilities at Incirlik are operating on internal power sources and a loss of commercial power to the base has not affected base operations.”
Turkey’s foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has said that coup plotters were at the air base and have been arrested, Reuters reports. Çavuşoğlu promised the anti-terror campaign will resume once anti-coup operations have ended.
He added that he’s spoken to US secretary of state John Kerry and stressed to him that the coup was launched by a network associated with exiled cleric Fethullah Gülen.
In 2015 Turkey agreed to let the US fly military strikes out of the base against jihadi militants in Syria and Iraq. Earlier on Saturday Kerry said that “as of this moment” Turkey’s coordination with the US on counter-terrorism was unchanged.
“Turkey’s cooperation with us with our coutner-terrorism efforts, in our Nato obligations and in our regional efforts with respect to Syria and Isis have not been affected negatively,” he said. “All of that has continued as before.”
`Turkish government has closed its airspace to military aircraft`
17 July 2016
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American military flights have been halted at the Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey, according to the Pentagon.
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