[ARAB NEWS] ANKARA: A provocative live-fire drill by the Turkish navy off the coast of Cyprus was branded illegal on Saturday, as reports emerged that the US is drawing up plans to withdraw from the strategic Incirlik air force base.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen to Incirlik,” Ron Johnson, the US senator who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee for Europe, told the Washington Examiner. “We hope for the best, but we have to plan for the worst.”
US withdrawal would be a blow to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, suggesting that the US no longer trusts him. “I think, from a defensive posture, we have to look at the reality of the situation that the path Erdogan is on is not good,” Johnson said.
Meanwhile Turkey is conducting naval gunnery exercises from Saturday until Monday off the coast at Sadrazamkoy in northern Cyprus, a part of the island controlled by Ankara but unrecognized by the rest of the world.
The Joint Rescue Coordinatio |