Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday that he expects full power to be restored to the Incirlik air base in Turkey in the next day or two, after it was cut during the attempted military coup on Friday.
“We don’t know,” Kerry told reporters at the State Department when asked when it might return. “But we have generators, the generators that we have that are working for our mission kicked in immediately.”
“We have not had our mission interrupted. Our mission continues, and we are told, our ambassador has been told, that the full power should be restored within a day or so to the base through the normal processes,” he added.
Turkey, a NATO ally, allows the U.S. to operate out the Incirlik air base, and the U.S. has used the base as a staging ground for anti-Islamic State operations.
Kerry noted that the base commander was one of those involved in last week’s coup attempt, and was arrested along with many others.
“There is evidence that planes that were flying that attacked the people of Turkey and the Parliament were refueled while in the air from planes at Incirlik,” Kerry said. “Not ours, but from Turkish planes at Incirlik.”
