WASHINGTON—Turkey has agreed to let the U.S. military launch airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) from a key air base near the Syrian border, senior U.S. officials said Thursday, July 23, giving a boost to the U.S.-led coalition while drawing Turkey deeper into the conflict.
President Barack Obama and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan finalized the deal in a phone call Wednesday, officials said, following months of U.S. appeals and delicate negotiations over the use of Incirlik and other bases in Turkey. Frustrated by Obama’s focus on fighting ISIS instead of Syrian President Bashar Assad, Turkey’s government had resisted the move, but in recent days a surge in ISIS’s activity in Turkey has brought concerns about the terrorist group to the forefront.
American officials said access to the base in southern Turkey, not far from ISIS strongholds across the border in Syria, would allow the United States to move more swiftly and nimbly against ISIS targets.
If the agreement holds, the U.S.-led coalition will be positioned to conduct better surveillance over Syria and act quicker on intelligence than when it was limited to launching flights from placed like Iraq, Jordan, and the Gulf states.
Under the deal, the U.S. military will be allowed to launch manned and unmanned flights from Incirlik; in the past, only unmanned drone flights were allowed.
Turkey has yet to publicly confirm the agreement, which U.S. officials discussed on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to comment publicly. Citing operational security, the White House declined to confirm the agreement, but noted that Obama and Erdogan had agreed to “deepen our cooperation” against ISIS in their phone call Wednesday.
