ANKARA - U.S. military officials had brought several proposals to their Turkish counterparts about the host country's support to military training at Karapinar airbase in Konya, diplomatic sources said on Friday.
Sources said that the Turkish side had told the U.S. authorities that it would not positively welcome U.S. military demands outside the content of the Defense and Economic Cooperation Agreement.
Sources said that the United States had not demanded opening of new airbases in Turkey and such an issue had never been discussed.
Regarding today's news report of New York Times saying that the U.S. was plan to deploy F-16 planes at Incirlik airbase, sources said that the United States was reviewing distribution of its armed forces in the world and it was known that those studies were not limited only with Turkey and news reports in the U.S. press were related to those studies.
Sources added that the United States had not made such an application to Turkey.
(MS-AÖ) 04.06.2004