Disputes between Germany, Turkey threaten to affect Nato mission

WASHINGTON 25 July 2017: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is working urgently to defuse a dispute between Turkey and Germany that threatens its operations including counterterrorism missions in the Middle East, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The deepening political divide risks curtailing NATO surveillance flights over Turkey from an air base in Konya, central Turkey, if German lawmakers aren’t granted access to personnel stationed there. German officials argue the visits are part of a mandate governing German military deployments abroad.

Last month Berlin ended German operations from nearby Incirlik air base, relocating troops to Jordan, after Ankara blocked a visit by German lawmakers.

Other NATO members and allies including the Netherlands, the U.S. and Austria have also gotten into their own spats with Turkey, unsettling relations inside the 29-country alliance.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg last week was in contact with the Turkish and German foreign ministers seeking a compromise in the current dispute, a NATO official said.

On Monday, NATO announced a compromise in which the German legislators visit the Konya air base as part of a NATO delegation under the alliance’s flag, spokesman Piers Cazalet said. Turkish officials didn’t respond to requests for comment on the NATO proposal.

German lawmakers welcomed the compromise. Henning Otte, a lawmaker and defense expert with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, said, “This is the only way to regain normal relations in the alliance.”

NATO diplomats want to keep the German contingent at the Konya air base because Germany provides roughly one-third of the air crew for the NATO AWACS surveillance planes. NATO isn’t directly involved in fighting Islamic State but provides valuable surveillance and air-traffic management to NATO member forces.

NATO is no stranger to quarrels between members, mainly border disputes, but has long managed to limit them. The latest disagreements are different, current and former NATO officials say. Turkey and its NATO allies are now sniping over fundamental policy issues including human rights, designations of terrorist organizations and decisions on how to fight Islamic State.

The situation is alarming, NATO officials and diplomats said.

“We cannot afford to have disagreements destroy what has been created over decades to preserve security,” said Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevičius, an advocate for accommodating Turkey. “Let’s go and talk.”

Turkey’s relations inside NATO have deteriorated over the year since a failed coup attempt there. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan responded with a crackdown that expanded from coup-plotters to opposition lawmakers, journalists, academics and human-rights advocates.

Some NATO members are increasingly critical of how Erdogan has consolidated power. Erdogan has responded by attacking NATO allies for supporting Kurdish and other terrorist organizations hostile to Turkey.

Turkey, an early member of NATO and its second-largest military behind the U.S., long played a pivotal role in the security alliance because of its border with the Soviet Union and its anticommunism stance. Today, its position bordering Syria puts it on the front lines of fighting Islamic State and other terror groups.