The State Department on Monday ordered the mandatory departure of U.S. diplomats and their family members from the consulate in Adana, a city in southern Turkey, after two missiles targeted the country.
The order widened the areas from which U.S. diplomats were told to leave, reflecting the Iran war’s expanding safety risks. Similar notices have ordered diplomats to leave missions in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Lebanon.
In Turkey, the United States also urged American citizens to leave the country’s southeast and suspended all consular services at the Adana consulate.
The missiles may have been targeting Incirlik Air Base, which is about five miles from the consulate in Adana and hosts U.S. and NATO forces.
Turkey is a member of NATO, the alliance whose nations in Europe and North America are bound to defend one another. NATO forces and the U.S. Air Force operate at the base, though Turkey has said that it would not allow its airspace to be used for attacks against Iran.
Last Wednesday, NATO shot down one of the missiles, which a senior U.S. official and a second Western official said had been aimed at the base. Turkey said on Monday that NATO defenses had shot down a second Iranian missile that had entered its airspace.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey spoke with Iran’s president, his office said early Tuesday, adding that President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran denied during the call that his country fired the missiles.
Turkey’s Defense Ministry said on Tuesday that NATO had deployed a Patriot air defense system in the eastern Turkish city of Malatya to protect the country’s airspace. The Patriot is the United States’ most advanced ground-based missile defense system.
John Yoon is a Times reporter based in Seoul who covers breaking and trending news.
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