Turkey to deploy NATO Patriot missiles on border with Syria

A Turkish military statement said on Monday that a joint Turkish-NATO team would assess where to station the missiles and the number of foreign troops needed to operate them.

This week, Turkey asked its NATO partners to deploy the surface-to-air Patriot missiles to protect its border with Syria. On November 21, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the alliance would consider the Turkish request “without delay.”

The Turkish government says that the missiles are needed to counter what it views as potential military threats from Syria.

The move is widely seen as the beginning of NATO’s active involvement in the Syria situation.

The deployment has angered Damascus, which calls the move provocative.

On Friday, Damascus censured Ankara’s plan to deploy the Patriot missiles along the Syrian border, calling it another act of provocation by the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

"Syria holds Erdogan responsible for the militarization of the situation at the border between Syria and Turkey, and the increase of tension," an official said on Syrian state television.

In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday that the Turkish move could spark a regional conflagration, adding that any deployment of Patriot missiles by Turkey could tempt Ankara to use the weapons and spark a "very serious armed conflict" involving NATO.

"I understand that no one has any intention to see NATO get sucked into the Syrian crisis," Lavrov stated, adding that "the more arms are being accumulated, the greater the risk that they will be used.”

The Syria crisis began in March 2011, and many people, including large numbers of army and security personnel, have been killed.

The Syrian government says that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the insurgents are foreign nationals. /SR