U.S. plans for more troops, fighter jets in Turkey
By Andrew Tilghman, Staff writer 4:28 p.m. EDT July 27, 2015
The U.S. plans to expand its military footprint in Turkey with more personnel and combat aircraft, part of an emerging deal with the Turkish military to intensify the fight against Islamic State militants in their strongholds across the Turkey-Syria border, a defense official said Monday.
"We're talking about logistics … berthing and force protection and things like that," Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said.
Davis declined to specify how many more U.S. troops may be heading to Turkey, noting only that "you would need to have more people to do more operations."
Pentagon officials offered few details on the historic deal with Turkey and said negotiations between U.S. and Turkish officials are continuing.
But the deal will clear the way for deployment of U.S. manned and unmanned strike aircraft out of Turkish bases, to include Incirlik Air Base, Davis said.
However, U.S. officials pushed back on reports that the deal will include a U.S. intent to enforce a "no-fly zone" over parts of Syria just across the Turkish border. Davis said the agreement with Turkey will involve pursuing an "ISIL-free zone," using an acronym for the Islamic State, but added: "We are not committed to a specific zone per se."
The deal could lead to a Joint Operations Center for Turkish and U.S. officials to coordinate the simultaneous use of airstrikes and ground operations targeting Islamic State militants.
"We're actively talking about what forces or capabilities might be based out of Turkey [and] how we can do joint operations with the Turks," Davis said.
He declined to comment on the role Turkish ground troops might play in future operations.
Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey is close to many Islamic State strongholds, and expanding U.S. operations there would cut response times for U.S. aircraft and increase the efficiency of anti-militant operations, Davis said.
About 1,700 U.S. service members are at Incirlik, according to Defense Department data. For years, the Turks have imposed strict caps on the number of U.S. personnel permitted at the base and also have restricted the type of U.S. flight operations to unarmed intelligence and surveillance aircraft.
Other Turkish military bases that U.S. forces might use include the Turkish air force facilities at Diyarbakir, an air base in the southern part of the country where the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has deployed Patriot missiles, a long-range surface-to-air system.
For years, the U.S. has approached air operations in Syria with caution out of concern that they could lead to a direct confrontation with the regime of embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Ramping up U.S. air operations in the Turkish border region could increase that risk because Assad's air forces also are mounting airstrikes on Islamic State targets and other anti-regime forces in that area.
U.S. aircraft have been flying strike sorties over Syria for nearly a year, but Assad's air defense radar systems have remained "passive," U.S. defense officials said.
Davis was ambiguous in his description of the U.S. position toward the Assad regime.
"Were not cooperating with the Assad regime nor are we waging war with the Assad regime," he said.
One complicating factor in an agreement with Turkey centers on the Syrian Kurdish forces. The U.S. has been providing military support for those Syrian Kurds in their fight against the Islamic State, but the Turkish military considers the Kurds an adversary.
The relationship between the U.S. and Turkey, both members of NATO, has been fraught with tension over the past couple of decades. In 2003, shortly before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Turks refused to grant U.S. forces permission to mount a northern offensive from the Turkish border, forcing the U.S. invasion to flow entirely through Kuwait in the south.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu recently launched a military campaign against Islamic State targets after a week of violence attributed to the militants. On July 20, a suicide bombing blamed on Islamic State operatives in a town close to the Syrian border killed 32 people. The next day, militants shot dead a Turkish noncommissioned officer and injured two others.
