Mike Pompeo will use a visit to Greece this week to explore proposals to relocate key American assets from the Incirlik airbase in Turkey to Crete, as the US looks to beef up its military presence in the eastern Mediterranean.
The visit by the
secretary of state is seen as a sign of Washington’s waning patience with President Erdogan of Turkey over his anti-western rhetoric and his decision last year to buy a sophisticated Russian anti-aircraft system despite fierce objections from the US and other Nato allies.
“Whether Washington can move all its assets, including nuclear arsenal, from the Incirlik, remains unclear,” Athanasios Drougos, a defence analyst based in Athens, said. “But the mere fact that Pompeo is coming here to reinforce the message that the US is actively pursuing alternative options is a stinging thorn in Erdogan’s side.”
The Incirlik base, set up at the height of the Cold War near Turkey’s frontier with Syria, has long been vital to US strategic interests in the Middle East. It has most recently been used as a launchpad for US-led airstrikes against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
Ron Johnson, head of the Senate foreign relations subcommittee for Europe, suggested this month that the US was considering an alternative: Souda Bay, a US naval facility on the northwest coast of Crete, which Mr Pompeo is due to visit tomorrow.
It is Mr Pompeo’s second visit to the region in two weeks. “US interest and presence in the greater region here is hugely important,” Mr Drougos said. “But coupled with growing designs by Russia and China to assert influence in the eastern Mediterranean and Turkey’s advances in Libya and illegal drilling in the region, Pompeo’s timing is hugely important.”
He added: “The US naval base in Souda Bay now acquires a much bigger and strategically important role.”
Relations between Greece and Turkey — Nato allies but age-old foes — have deteriorated dramatically in the weeks since the Turks dispatched a research vessel to survey for gas and oil near Crete. Mr Pompeo waded into the crisis, leading Turkey to pull back its research vessel and Greece to agree to “exploratory” talks next month.
Details have yet to be announced but Greece has already insisted that it will discuss only maritime differences. Turkey wants open discussions. “The chances of a breakthrough in these talks look slim,” Mr Drougos said. “But at least the tension is down for now.”
Mr Pompeo will also visit the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki to sign bilateral technology agreements with energy companies looking to build infrastructure projects in the Balkans.