Germany

Comment: Clear message to Erdogan

Germany is not vulnerable to blackmail! The President of the Bundestag Lammert is to understand if the deployment of the Bundeswehr in the Turkish Incirlik in question. Rightly so, says Sabine Kinkartz.

Tornado fighter aircraft of the German army on the air base in Incirlik, Turkey

Who is allowed to visit the German armed forces at the NATO base at Incirlik, and who is not? For the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, this is not a question. The air base, which plays in the international fight against the jihadists militia “Islamic state” (IS) an important role, is the property of the Turkish air force and is located in Turkey. From this, the sovereignty derives Erdogan the right to be allowed access to visitors and to refuse to grant, as it suits him.

For German parliamentarians of the barrier remains for three weeks at the bottom. A deliberate provocation, which did not happen to the Armenian Resolution in the German Bundestag, in which the house has the massacres in the Ottoman Empire against the Armenians more than 100 years ago as “genocide”. If the are not alone the desires of a child looking for revenge, or whether Erdogan really believes that he could move with the prohibition of the Bundestag, the Resolution to withdraw?

The Bundeswehr is a parliamentary army

In any case, it is a politically little-thought-out response, because in hardly any other country in the Parliament, has so many co-determination rights in military matters as in Germany.

Sabine Kinkartz is a correspondent in the DW-capital Studio

The Bundeswehr is considered to be the Parliament’s army, because each country have been used by the Bundestag to be decided. That said, a number of honourable members already. If now also the President of the Bundestag Norbert Lammert, the whereabouts of the German armed forces in Incirlik in question, then this opinion has been said so far is not to concentrate and strengthen. It shows, moreover, that a withdrawal of the Bundeswehr is a very serious Option.

Lammert is a friend of clear words and in the dispute with Turkey now a clear position. In contrast to the Chancellor, the had used at the weekend during a conversation with the Turkish President, although unsuccessfully, for an end to the visit of ban, but (as yet) no consequences pull want. Where Angela Merkel remains vague, it shows Nobert Lammert to right clear edge: If the Bundeswehr would not be in Turkey no longer welcome and visit to the prohibitions do not indicate the, of course, then they would not remain there permanently.

Incirlik belonged to Armenians

However, Lammert, and the Chancellor is already clear that the use of the Bundeswehr against the so-called “Islamic state” is not alone a German-Turkish matter. Around 250 German soldiers, with their fighter jets and a refueling aircraft on reconnaissance flights over Syria and Iraq, to be used by the international community. Could you pull off, you still so simple? A political and a moral conflict, but also Erdogan in cold blood. And that makes the decision even more unappetizing.

The litmus test will come, however, at the earliest, in the second week of September. As long as the Bundestag is still in the summer break. But then the defense experts from all the parliamentary groups in the Bundestag want to travel together to the German soldiers in Turkey. You announced before your holiday already and your travel request already made. So it would be not bad, if the dispute with Turkey would not submit until then. Oh Yes, finally, maybe a Aperçu: The site on which today the air base Incirlik is located, was expropriated in connection with the genocide of 1915. It is the Armenians belonged to.

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