Turkey allows German MPs to visit İncirlik after row

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Ankara has given permission for German lawmakers to pay a visit to Turkey's İncirlik Air Base, after previously refusing access amid a row over a bill in the German Bundestag labeling the World War I-era killing of Anatolian Armenians as "genocide."

"We have given permission to German parliamentarians to visit İncirlik since German authorities have met our expectations with a statement that the bill on the so-called genocide is not legally binding," said Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu on Sept. 8, during a press conference with visiting Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir. 

Strained relations between Ankara and Berlin due to the Armenian bill worsened after Turkey rejected a German parliamentary delegation's visit in late June to İncirlik Air Base, which hosts 250 German troops, six surveillance jets and a refueling tanker.

Berlin had threatened the removal of its military presence at the base to another regional country in response. The German troops and jets at İncirlik contribute to the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Iraq and Syria.

Hours before Çavuşoğlu's statement, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier had said in Berlin that they had agreed with Turkey for the lawmakers' visit. 

"I welcome the fact the Turkish government has now approved the plans for a visit by the defense committee of the German parliament" to İncirlik, said Steinmeier.

"With this decision by the Turkish government, we have taken a step forward," he said, after months of discord since the German parliament angered Turkey by declaring the World War I mass killings of Anatolian Armenians in 1915 "genocide."

"An army that answers to parliament...

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