Turkey Accepts Missile Radar for NATO Defense – NYTimes.com

By THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON — The final legal and diplomatic building blocks fell into place this week for the Obama administration’s rejiggered defense of Europe against a potential Iranian missile attack. Romania signed a deal for 24 interceptor missiles to be based there, and Turkey officially agreed to have in its territory a sophisticated American radar system that could be on the watch by the end of the year.

American officials called the deal with Turkey the most significant military cooperation between Washington and Ankara since 2003, when Turkish officials infuriated their American counterparts by refusing to allow an armored division to cross Turkish territory to join the invasion of Iraq.

“This is probably the biggest strategic decision between the United States and Turkey in the past 15 or 20 years,” one senior administration official said Thursday at a White House briefing meant to call attention to the developments.

Turkish officials were careful in their comments to avoid identifying Iran as the specific threat motivating their decision to join NATO’s American-designed missile shield. But Turkey is worried by Iran’s evolving missile capabilities and by signs that Tehran has secretly supported the bloody crackdown on protesters in Syria. (Iran crushed its own pro-democracy demonstrations in 2009.)

There were hurdles to the deal. The Turkish news media published objections to the sharing of information gathered by the American radar with Israel. Relations between Turkey and Israel, once fairly close, soured badly after the Israeli government refused to apologize for the deadly assault last year on a flotilla trying to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

Still, senior administration officials said Thursday that the United States had not agreed to any restrictions. The data from the radar in Turkey — combined with an array of other data and American intelligence assessments of missile threats — will be shared with allies, including Israel, in keeping with longstanding arrangements, officials said.

“It’s a U.S. radar,” said one senior official.

The official said Turkey’s cooperation on missile defense would contribute to its own security and strengthen ties between Turkey, the only predominantly Muslim NATO member, and its Atlantic allies. The White House insisted that the officials not be identified.

The radar will be placed at a Turkish installation about 435 miles from Iran, officials said. A similar American missile-defense radar already operates in Israel.

Iranian officials have said the American-led missile-defense initiative will increase tensions and destabilize the region. Russia’s response to American proposals for a European missile-defense system has ranged from virulent objections to hints of cooperation, perhaps merely the sharing of information.

“The architecture of the system is designed to provide the optimal protection against ballistic missile threats from the Middle East, from Iran in particular,” said one senior administration official. “The system is not in any way directed against Russia.”

President Obama ordered a significant redesign of the European missile-defense architecture he inherited from George W. Bush, who favored placing interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic.

Mr. Obama decided to move the system closer to Iran and build it faster, in part because Iran already fields mainly shorter-range missiles. He sped up deployment of Navy Aegis-equipped warships armed with their own radar and interceptor missiles to the Mediterranean Sea. One such ship, the U.S.S. Monterey, is there today, officials said.

The missiles scheduled for Romania are to be installed by 2015, and 24 interceptors are planned for Poland by 2018. They would be upgraded on a schedule to match American intelligence assessments of Iran’s ability to field missiles of increasing range.

A version of this article appeared in print on September 16, 2011, on page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: U.S. Hails Deal With Turkey on Missile Shield.

via Turkey Accepts Missile Radar for NATO Defense – NYTimes.com.