Expanded NATO Presence at Key Turkish Airbase Prompts Opposition Outrage
SputnikNews.com
11.12.2015
Representatives of Turkey’s largest opposition parties have slammed the government’s decision to allow NATO to expand its presence at the Incirlik airbase, saying that it is a violation of the constitution, and the country’s status as a parliamentary democracy, Today’s Zaman reports.
Speaking to the newspaper, Aytun Ciray, a lawmaker from the Republican People’s Party, Turkey’s largest opposition party, said that Ankara’s decision to grant NATO countries other than the US the right to use its base represented a violation of the country’s constitution. Furthermore, he noted that even if NATO countries do not require a formal memorandum to use the bases, the decision should still have been debated in parliament.
“Unfortunately,” Ciray said, “the president has [been] circumventing parliament for a long time now. We cannot make decisions on national issues following debate. We are devoid of a Western-style parliamentary democracy at the moment.”
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