US Marines 'safe' after attack on Turkish street

American troops on shore leave as their ship, USS Wasp, docked in Aegean coastal city Izmir

US amphibious assault ship the USS Wasp docked at Limassol, Cyprus, on August 9, 2024. AFP

Two US Marines who were attacked by a group of men in western Turkey are safe and were not injured during the incident, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.

Members of a nationalist Turkish youth group on Monday attacked the Marines, who were on shore leave in the Aegean coastal city of Izmir in western Turkey after their ship, the USS Wasp, stopped for a port visit.

“The two Marines are safe,” Pentagon spokesman Maj Gen Pat Ryder said. “They were aided by other Marines in the area and subsequently taken to a local hospital for evaluation as precaution, but were not injured, and subsequently returned to the USS Wasp.”

Maj Gen Ryder said Izmir police and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service are co-operating in an investigation of the incident.

Footage posted on social media showed a group of men restraining the two Marines, who were in civilian clothes, at one point pulling a white hood or a shirt over the head of one of the service members.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Tuesday that the attack was “a serious matter” and that Washington appreciated the actions of Turkish police.

In a statement, the Izmir Governor's office said members of the Turkey Youth Union, a youth branch of the nationalist opposition Vatan Party, “physically attacked” the Marines, who were in the Konak district.

It added that five US personnel joined in after seeing the incident, and that police intervened. All 15 attackers had been detained and an investigation was launched into the matter, it said.

US-Turkey ties have been strained in recent years by the US alliance with Syrian Kurds that Turkey deems extremists, and over Turkey's purchase of Russian S-400 missile defences that prompted US sanctions and removal from a F-35 jet programme.

There has also been a divergence over Israel's war in Gaza, where more than 40,800 people have been killed according to Gazan authorities, and over which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sharply criticised Washington's ally.