Ankara has claimed it will have sole responsibility for the routes and missions of four US Predators deployed to an air base in southeastern Turkey last month to help with efforts to track down and gather intelligence on Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorists.The aircraft in Turkey will be operational after those in Iraq take off for their last mission on November 22.
“In line with the US plan to pull out of Iraq, Predators will fly for the last time from Iraq on Nov. 22; from then onwards the four Predators currently based in Turkey will be taking over surveillance missions,” Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu was quoted by the Anatolia news agency as saying on Saturday.
He confirmed that two of the Predators were already based at İncirlik Air Base in Adana and would be taking up surveillance in a timely manner so as not to leave any gaps after US forces leave Iraq. “The data provided by those predators will be shared in real time by a unit in Turkey and the routes for the Predators will be determined solely by the Turkish Armed Forces [TSK] and our military officials,” Davutoğlu said.
The foreign minister clarified it was Turkey that requested the continuation of drone surveillance after the US pullout as the country has greatly benefited from data obtained by the unmanned aerial vehicles in its fight against the PKK. Any gap in the gathering of intelligence by the drones could endanger Turkish forces, which often experience ambush attacks from the PKK. The timely deployment of the Predators before the US concludes its flights in Iraq is expected to enable the surveillance to go uninterrupted.
The four US aircraft arrived at İncirlik in late October, the Taraf daily reported on Friday, as it claimed that their deployment happened days before Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan discussed a request to purchase drones to be used in the fight against the PKK with US President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the recent G-20 summit in Paris.
Source: Tacstrat