NATO Air Command bids farewell to Izmir

Closing ceremony (deactivation) for NATO Air Command was held in Turkey's western Izmir province on Wednesday. Serving since August 11, 2004 in "Orgeneral Vecihi Akin" headquarters in Buca town of Izmir, NATO Air Command would close as a result of NATO's new organizational settlement and Izmir would give service as single center in its land forces. Commander of NATO Allied Joint Force Command Naples Admiral Bruce Clingan delivered a speech at the closing ceremony where he stated that Izmir hosted NATO commanders in an excellent way since 1952. Stating that command names, duties, infrastructure and many other things changed, Clingan said one thing that remained still was the warm hospitality of Izmir. Lieutenant General Ralph Jodice, commanding general for NATO Air Command (AC), also emphasized the beauty of Izmir and said that he would miss everything about the city including the weather, people, food and added, "Izmir really is the pearl of the Aegean." The soldiers would begin serving in their new places of duty as of June 1 and allied land forces command, serving since December 1, 2012 in Izmir, was expected to reach the beginning capacity via increasing its personnel. Members of the alliance complete the new command structure, what they had started to handle in the 2002 summit in Prague. At the basis of the transformation of organization was to attribute functionality instead of geographical position for alliances' command adaptation. Being founded during the Cold War era and serving since then, NATO's most important transformation was "New Strategy Document", adopted in 2010. The document stated that the Alliance would not follow a constant process and continue to transform. After the document was published, new command centers gained certainty in NATO Defence Ministers' meeting in Brussels on June 8, 2011. With the new received decision, land forces command was built in Izmir in place of the air command. Izmir was to serve as one of three main headquarters, directly allied air commands of Mons province of Brussels as well as to be the single land forces command of NATO. Thereunder, the land forces both in Germany and Spain delegated their duties to Izmir. New structure of the alliance provides for overcoming the "clumsy and costly" construction, for closing four main bases and decreasing 30 percent of its personnel. Besides, NATO's air commands are to be hosted by Germany and naval forces by Britain in new NATO.