NATO
votes to deploy Patriot missiles on Turkey-Syria border
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen holds a news conference during a NATO foreign ministers at the Alliance's headquarters in Brussels December 4, 2012. (Reuters / Francois Lenoir)
Soldiers
of the Air Defence Missile Squadron 2 walk past Patriot missile
launchers in the background in Bad Suelze, northern Germany on
December 4, 2012. (AFP Photo / Bernd Wustneck)
RT,
4
December, 2012
NATO
foreign ministers have voted to approve Ankara’s request for
Patriot missiles to be deployed on the Turkey-Syria border. Ankara
requested the deployment over fears that Syria could attack with
missiles and chemical weapons.
The
Patriots can be used to intercept missiles and planes.
Officials
from the 28-member alliance meeting in Brussels have said that the
US-made missiles will be for purely defensive purposes.
"NATO’s
position is clear. Any deployment would be to protect turkey. It
would be purely defensive in nature. It will in no way support a no
fly zone or any offensive operation," NATO
Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in a statement.
“I
believe that the deployment of patriot missiles will serve as an
effective deterrence and therefore deescalate the situation along the
Syrian-Turkish border,” Rasmussen
continued.
But
some say the missiles won't be used for deterrence – and that
a broader agenda may be in place.
“A
patriot missile is an attack weapon. It’s not a deterrent at all.
Especially considering the Syrian army would never launch missiles
across the border against Turkey because they know they’d be
attacking a NATO ally,” Asia
Times journalist Pepe Escobar told RT.
Military
sources in Turkey told AFP that 300-400 foreign troops would be
deployed to operate the Patriot missiles.
NATO
ministers have unanimously expressed "grave
concern" about
reports that the Syrian regime may be considering the use of chemical
weapons.
"Any
such action would be completely unacceptable and a clear reach of
international law," Rasmussen said
.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen holds a news conference during a NATO foreign ministers at the Alliance's headquarters in Brussels December 4, 2012. (Reuters / Francois Lenoir)
The
NATO decision comes just one day after US President Barack Obama told
Syrian President Bashar Assad not to use chemical weapons against his
own people.
"I
want to make it absolutely clear to Assad and those under his
command, the world is watching, the use of chemical weapons is and
would be totally unacceptable," Obama
said in a statement.
"If
you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons, there will be
consequences and you will be held accountable,"he
said.
But
Escobar says Obama's statement was unnecessary and full of
intimidation.
“When
Obama said to the Assad government, ‘our red line is chemical
weapons,’ it was intimidation. [The US] knows that even a desperate
Assad government would never use chemical weapons because the
response would be overwhelming. It's the same thing with deploying
patriot missiles at the border,” he
said.
Earlier
on Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that while
Russia recognized Turkey's right to ask for help from its NATO
allies, Moscow is "concerned
that the conflict is being increasingly militarized."
During
talks with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul
yesterday, Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that Patriot
missiles could not guarantee safety. He said that accumulating
weapons on the border with another country does not add to
stability.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.