Tag: NATO missile shield

ISTANBUL, Turkey, Nov. 24 (UPI) — Leading Turkish politicians expressed concerns over the U.S. proposed European missile shield.

Numan Kurtulmus, leader of the newly established People’s Voice Party, or HSP, told journalists in Ankara, “It’s a project that could lead to World War III. It’s not for defense but for aggression,” Hurriyet newspaper reported Wednesday.

The HSP will have its first convention Sunday in a bid to meet the criteria for political parties to be able to enter the 2011 general elections.

“The (reason) for founding NATO in 1991 disappeared following the demise of the Soviet Union. Since then it has been trying to create new enemies for itself to justify its existence. And it has found its enemies among the Muslim countries,” Kurtulmus said.

He also said that since the alliance can no longer contribute to global peace, NATO should no longer be seen as the “single option” for Turkey before concluding, “With the approval of the missile shield, Turkey has once again become the front country of NATO.”

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via Turkey concerned over missile shield – UPI.com.

U.S. security guarantees for Israel worthless when Turkey controls missile shield.

DEBKA By bowing to Ankara’s demand to omit Iran, Syria and their ballistic missiles as a threat from the NATO agreement to establish a missile shield base in Turkey, President Barak Obama has devalued any US security guarantees offered Israel – as well as negating the facility’s avowed purpose.

The missile shield and its location in Europe were conceived in the first place for detecting and defusing Iranian and Syrian ballistic missile before they reached Europe or the United States. ”For the first time we’ve agreed to develop a missile defense capability that is strong enough to cover all Nato European territory and populations as well as the United States,” Obama declared Friday, Nov. 19, at the NATO summit in Lisbon. The US president did not say against who or what. Neither did he reveal the full scope of US and NATO’s surrender to Turkey.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the covert clauses in the deal additionally provide for the missile base to come under the command of a Turkish general. President Abdullah Gul held out on this point in discussions with President Obama and NATO leaders, following the lead given him by Prime Minister Tayyep Erdogan of Monday, Nov. 15: “Turkey would demand that NATO assign a Turkish commander to oversee the shield. Especially if this is to be place on our soil…,” said Erdogan.

Turkey’s leaders are very close to the Islamic Republic’s 
extremist rulers and see nothing amiss in their deploying large portions of Iran’s missile arsenal on Syrian and Lebanese soil (in Hizballah’s keeping). A Turkish general in command of the NATO missile shield cannot be expected to regard threatening missile action by Iran, Syria or Hizballah in the same light as would President Obama or NATO Secretary-General Andres vog Rasmussen. He would simply follow the orders of his own prime minister.

So NATO’s forward missile interceptor may be physically and technically located in Turkey but, under a Turkish commander, its usefulness as an operational shield for the West against the most concrete perils facing NATO members is nil.

In these circumstances, there is not much point in Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu holding out for American security guarantees, even after the US State Department spokesman stated Friday, Nov. 19, “The United States is prepared to offer Israel written security guarantees if it would help to restart stalled Middle East peace talks.” Those guarantees were awarded Turkey at the NATO summit in Lisbon and, by extension, to Iran, Syria and their radical allies, whose missiles are poised on Israel’s borders facing in only one direction.

It is important to remember that American missile defense systems are closely inter-linked with and slotted into corresponding Israeli missile interceptors, air defenses and intelligence. How can this vital collaboration continue after a Turkish commander has his hand on the levers of NATO’s defense shield for the United States and Europe?

TURKEY TO OBAMA: “Exclude Israel from missile shield.” (Or else what?)

Turkey has asked the US to make an official policy statement that no non-NATO countries would be privy to intelligence. This military information will be gathered by a network of radars and guard posts set up as part of a planned missile shield to guard NATO from ballistic missile threats.

In the ongoing diplomatic campaign against Israel, Turkey has asked the US to make an official policy statement. The Islamic nations demand that non-NATO countries should be privy to intelligence gathered by a network of radars and guard posts set up as part of a planned missile shield to guard NATO from ballistic missile threats.

Turkey has previously protested the tone of the plan which they said unfairly singled out Iran as the likely source of such threats, and this latest move is believed to be directed primarily at Israel.

“Any clear reference to Iran or any other neighboring country as a threat… runs counter to Ankara’s chief foreign policy objective: ‘zero problems’ with neighbors,” said an editorial in a prominent Turkish newspaper recently.

In response to the Turkish request, the Pentagon assured all its NATO allies that the intel gathered by the system would not be available to non-NATO members.

ANKARA, Turkey — A state-run news agency on Thursday said Turkey has received support from some NATO members over its demand that the alliance’s plan for a missile shield over Europe should not name a specific country as a threat.

The US has asked NATO-member Turkey to host some of the radar defenses and to approve the proposal for an Europe-wide defense network. Turkey has hesitated, saying it doesn’t want the system explicitly to target its neighbor, Iran. Iran has also cautioned Turkey about the plans.

The deal on the missile shield could be sealed at a two-day NATO summit starting Friday in Portugal.

Turkey’s Anatolia news agency, quoting unnamed sources, said that discussions over who would command the radar system that would be deployed in Turkey are also underway.

EMANUELE OTTOLENGHI – 11.18.2010 – 1:03 PM

More evidence that NATO is in trouble has come alive as the alliance prepares for its summit this weekend. As reported in several news sources, Turkey has gotten its way, and NATO officialdom will make no mention of Iran as a missile threat so as not to complicate things for NATO’s only Islamist member. The whole thing is, of course, a farce. NATO secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen (who, as Danish prime minister during the cartoon affair, has already had a flavor of Turkish tolerance), has confirmed that NATO’s new strategic concept, due to be released at the summit, will not name Iran as a particular threat. Pressed by journalists, NATO spokesman James Appathurai was quoted as saying that “[t]here are at least 30 countries, more than 30 countries, acquiring, that have or are acquiring ballistic missile capability,” he replied. “So this is not just about one country. It’s about a growing and, in essence, generic potential threat to our territory.”

Now, we will not argue with the fact that NATO’s readiness to embrace missile defense may be more than just about Iran — after all, Syria and Libya have missiles (Libya actually shot missiles once at a NATO ally — Italy — in 1986, in lame retaliation for the U.S. raid over Tripoli). If Pakistan ever fell into the wrong hands, there would be even more reason to worry. And North Korea may one day have ICBMs to threaten NATO countries (it already threatens NATO allies and partners).

But why not point out Iran, given that Libya has renounced its nuclear program and Syria is an Iran proxy whose nuclear program benefited from Iranian and North Korean support? And the 30-country myth is especially silly — as it includes countries too far away to threaten NATO countries, friendly countries, NATO members, countries with obsolete missile programs, and then, well, and then Iran.

If missile defense is to be an essential component of NATO’s new doctrine of nuclear deterrence in a world populated in the future by rogue states with ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, then it would be desirable to recall that another essential element of any deterrence doctrine is some kind of declaratory policy. If all we get from NATO is denial for Turkey’s appeasement’s sake, the credibility of NATO’s deterrence is harmed.

Which all comes down to a simple matter — why is Turkey still a member of the alliance?

via Commentary » Blog Archive » NATO Going Cold Turkey.