Turkey is threatening to close the American military bases at Incirlik and Kürecik in response to sanctions imposed by the United States and the adoption of Resolution 150 by the US Senate recognizing the Armenian Genocide. This was stated by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during a joint live broadcast on Turkish television channels ATV and A-Haber the previous day.
“If necessary, we will close Incirlik and Kürecik as well; everything depends on mutual attitude. If they threaten us with sanctions, then we too will take retaliatory steps. It is important on both sides that the United States does not take steps that leave irreversible consequences on bilateral relations,” Erdoğan said.
He insisted that the American side’s actions do not correspond to the spirit of their allied relations, urging the US Congress to put an end to making issues unrelated to the nature of bilateral relations between the two countries “the subject of domestic political debate.”
“We expect the US leadership to take the necessary measures to prevent steps that could further damage bilateral relations,” Erdoğan noted.
The Turkish President did not forget the archives issue. “We are now opening more than one million documents available in the archives of our armed forces; let historians and jurists come and study them. Is there any in Armenia or not? Let everyone open their archives so that they may be studied by committees of historians. Only after that, if necessary, will we politicians intervene,” Erdoğan said, adding that one can speak about the genocide issue only with substantiated arguments.
The Turkish President also hastened to give history lessons to countries that have brought the Armenian Genocide issue to their parliaments. He reminded the US of the Native Americans, considering that topic the shame of Americans, and accused the French of carrying out massacres in Rwanda and Algeria.
“We are demonstrating that the West’s past is a history of discrimination and colonialism,” Erdoğan declared, expressing the conviction that those with a historical past full of genocides and massacres have no right to speak about Turkey’s “glorious” history.
