Sevil Erkuş - Hürriyet / Istanbul, March 26 () - Military officials from Turkey and U.S. have agreed to deploy armed drones to Adana’s İncirlik airbase to help in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL).
During a visit by the commander of the U.S. Central Command, Gen. Lloyd J. Austin, to Ankara on March 11, Turkish and U.S. military officials agreed to deploy two armed drones to İncirlik Airbase, but the parties are waiting for political consent to be sealed with an agreement, a Turkish official told the Hürriyet Daily News.
The U.S. has been using four unarmed Predator drones at the airbase for 3.5 years. One of the Predators that took off from İncirlik was downed by the Syrian Air Force in Syria last week.
Ankara and Washington are continuing to negotiate for the deployment of U.S. warplanes as part of efforts to defeat and degrade ISIL in Syria and Iraq.
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