Turkey May Expel US From Air Bases in Retaliation for Sanctions

Turkish FM threatens retaliation if Congress moves on sanctions

The US is planning to move ahead with sanctions against Turkey over their acquisition of the S-400 air defense system from Russia. Turkey has long warned against this, saying that they would retaliate against any sanctions.

With sanctions getting closer, Turkish FM Mevlut Cavusoglu addressed the retaliation on Wednesday, saying that kicking the US out of two Turkish airbases would be under discussion.

The US is hosted at Kurecik and Incirlik airbases. Incirlik is seen as particularly important to the US, both because it is used in the Syrian War, and is believed to host a number of US nuclear weapons.

As US-Turkey relations have gotten progressively worse in recent months, kicking the US out of Incirlik has been raised as a possibility several times. Congress has been pushing for sanctions against Turkey for some time, despite losing the base being a very real possibility.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.