Hulusi Akar, former Turkish defense minister and current head of the Turkish Parliament’s National Defense Committee, has warned Iran against targeting İncirlik Air Base under the mistaken assumption that it is an American base, reminding that the facility is entirely under Turkish military control, the Cumhuriyet daily reported.
Akar was speaking at a conference at Kayseri University on Tuesday. Since the US-Israeli strikes on Iran began on February 28, opposition figures in Turkey have renewed calls to close the base.
New Welfare Party (YRP) leader Fatih Erbakan demanded the immediate closure of both İncirlik Air Base and the Kürecik radar station in eastern Malatya province on the day the strikes began.
Akar said the escalation between the United States, Israel and Iran could cause serious disruptions to energy supplies and trigger new waves of migration toward Turkey. He acknowledged the possibility that Iran could target İncirlik by describing it as an American base but said such an assumption would be wrong.
He said foreign military personnel from the United States, Germany, Spain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are stationed at İncirlik as guests and that Turkey is the sole owner of the facility. He said Iran must understand this distinction and warned against any strike on the base on the pretext of targeting Americans.
Akar said Turkey’s borders are protected round the clock with advanced defense systems and that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan are in continuous contact with their counterparts to push for a ceasefire, adding that Ankara has clearly conveyed the message that Turkey must not be drawn into the conflict.
İncirlik, located near the southern city of Adana, is frequently described in Turkish public discourse as an American base, but full sovereignty over the facility belongs to Turkey. It was established in 1954 under a bilateral agreement and is operated by the Turkish Air Force’s 10th Tanker Base Command under the authority of a Turkish general. The current legal framework governing its use is the 1980 Defense and Economic Cooperation Agreement (DECA), under which the United States and other allied forces operate as authorized users, not as owners or co-sovereigns.
Turkey has previously exercised its authority to restrict access to the base. After the United States imposed an arms embargo following Turkey’s 1974 military intervention in Cyprus, Ankara suspended all bilateral US military activities at its bases in July 1975, halting operations at İncirlik except those carried out under NATO mandates.
The base also plays a role in NATO’s nuclear sharing arrangement. Although not officially confirmed, international defense reports from organizations such as the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) have long assessed that approximately 50 B61 tactical nuclear weapons are stored at the facility. This elevates any debate over İncirlik’s future beyond US-Turkish bilateral relations and into the broader framework of NATO’s collective deterrence strategy.