Turkey has given conditional approval to the deployment of a NATO missile shield on its soil, provided that the deployment’s official papers don’t name Iran and Syria as enemies.
Turkey indicated Thursday during a meeting of NATO ministers that it could approve the deployment of a proposed U.S.-led anti-missile system on Turkish soil, though it expressed reservations about the project.
“We demanded that Iran and Syria not be cited as ‘threats’ in NATO’s official documents on the planned defensive shield,” Turkish Foreign Ministry officials told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review on Friday. “Also, the deployment of the shield should cover the territory of all NATO allies, as well as the entire territory of Turkey.”
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Ankara told the U.S. officials that if defense is the purpose of the system, no nations should be named in NATO documents as targets, since that would provoke those countries, according to the same diplomatic sources.
“In that case, Turkey could face problems with its neighbors due to the missile shield,” diplomatic sources told the Daily News.
The technical discussions on the issue will continue until the NATO summit Nov. 19-20 in Brussels, where a decision is expected to be made.
I suppose that Iran and Syria aren’t threats to Turkey, although they are threats to just about every other country in NATO.
Maybe the missile shield should be deployed someplace else.
http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2010/10/turkey-tells-nato-iran-and-syria-arent.html
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