The Turkish military is concerned about Russian forces in Syria, but there may be a political solution to the issue, a Turkish general said on Sept. 28. “We have some concerns about it for the military aspect,” said Lt. Gen. Salih Ulusoy, J-5 on the Turkish General Staff, speaking at the American Turkish Council’s 34th Annual Conference on US-Turkey relations. “It’s [a] big danger for us,” potentially leading to Turkey “being dangerously flanked by Russia on two fronts,” he said. Ulusoy was joined on a panel by James Townsend, deputy assistant secretary of defense for European and NATO policy. Townsend said rumors that the US-Turkey military relationship is in trouble are “not true,” pointing to Incirlik Air Base, which he noted was a key location in the Cold War, the “epicenter for Operation Northern Watch—our joint effort to police the skies over Iraq in the late 1990s,”—and is now a “critical node in our joint fight against Daesh [another term for ISIS].” Townsend said he was particularly impressed with how quickly the US and Turkish militaries moved to make and implement plans for flights over Syria after the two countries’ p?residents spoke.
House lawmakers unveiled a new reconciliation package July 15 with $60 billion for defense, $290 billion less than the Pentagon has been seeking, a day after a Senate vote to advance the annual defense policy bill failed—developments that show the perilous state of the Pentagon’s ambitious plans for fiscal 2027.