NATO decides to turn Izmir airbase into land command

NATO defense ministers yesterday announced they had agreed to transform NATO's air base in the Aegean province of Izmir into a land base. Land bases at Heidelberg, Germany and Madrid will close, as will a naval base at Naples, Italy, NATO said. In announcing the agreement, reached at a meeting of NATO defense ministers on Wednesday night, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said it would make the 28-nation alliance "leaner, more flexible" as well as "more affordable." "NATO will trim the number of its major bases from 11 to seven to cut costs and duplication, including transforming the air base in Turkey's port city of Izmir into a land command," the alliance said. The move, which will also include the closure of the joint force command in Lisbon, one of three such installations, would cut more than 4,000 posts. NATO is currently using its command base in Izmir to oversee its aerial mission as part of the operation against Libyan forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Last October at a meeting in Brussels attended by Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul, leaders drafted plans to reform NATO's command structure and cut the numbers of fixed headquarters from 11 to seven, and trim staff numbers from around 13,000 to 8,500. NATO has two command bases in Germany and two in Italy. NATO's other bases are located in Turkey, Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Albania.