Russia didn’t demand to use İncirlik air base, Turkish PM says

ISTANBUL

Russia had no demands to use İncirlik air base in the southern province of Adana, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım has said, as he commented on a recent report stating that Moscow asked Ankara to use the base. 

“Russia had no demands to use İncirlik air base. Those reports are not true,” Yıldırım told foreign correspondents in Istanbul on Aug. 20, adding that it Russia wants to use the base to hit the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) targets in Syria, it can do so. 

“Russia doesn’t need to use the base. They have bases in Syria,” he also said, while noting that planes belonging not only to the U.S. but also several other countries are using the base.