Turkey Acted as a Transfer Station to Guantanamo

An intelligence cable released by WikiLeaks revealed that despite prior denial of such claims, Turkey did indeed allow America to use Incirlik Air Base to transfer terror suspects.

WikiLeaks has published yet another classified cable in which Turkey gave America the green light to make use of Incirlik Air Base as part of its top-secret operation to transfer suspected terrorists to the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

The British newspaper The Guardian reported that the memo was sent on June 8, 2006. It recorded the former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, Ross Wilson, as saying that Turkey was a vital ally “in the global war on terror” and that Turkey served as a major logistics base for the war in Iraq.

“The Turkish military had allowed us to use Incirlik as a refueling stop for Operation Fundamental Justice detainee movement operations since 2002, but revoked this permission in February of this year,” the cable read. “We understand OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense] and JCS [Joint Chiefs of Staff] have been discussing whether to approach Turkey to seek to reverse this decision.”

Wilson, writing to the State Department in Washington, is further quoted as saying, “We recommend that you do not raise this issue with TGS [Turkish General Staff] pending clarification from Washington on what approach state/OSD/JCS/NSC [National Security Council] wish to take.”

The memo contradicts statements of Turkish officials, at the time, with regard to joint cooperation in the transferring of terror suspects to Guantanamo. In June 2006, the spokesman for the Turkish foreign minister declared, “The government of the Republic of Turkey, the people or the state did not play any role at all in this process at any time. And they will not do so in the future.”

It has also come to light that secret prisons operated by the CIA have been set up in Lithuania and possibly even Poland and Romania. It has been reported that the British Island of Diego Garcia, located in the Indian Ocean, served as a secret prison and holding facility until prisoners were carted off to Guantanamo or facilities elsewhere.