Tag: NATO missile shield

(Reuters) – A U.S.-led plan to build a missile defense shield against Iran will test Turkey’s conflicting allegiances, forcing it to find a way to satisfy NATO allies without alienating new partners to the East.

Frustrated at “waiting at the gates” of the European Union, and out of step with long time ally the United States on some key foreign policy issues — notably regarding Iran — Muslim Turkey has charted an increasingly independent course.

NATO member states will discuss at a summit in Lisbon on November 19-20 whether to build the shield, aimed at countering ballistic threats from the Middle East, in particular Iran.

Turkey, the only Muslim state in NATO, doesn’t want any NATO agreement on the shield to identify as potential enemies either fellow Muslim states Iran and Syria, or Russia. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan also wants the shield to cover all Turkish territory and seeks guarantees command would stay within NATO.

Though Turkey is committed to NATO missions such as Afghanistan, it is no longer the compliant partner that it was during the Cold War and cannot be taken for granted by the West.

“Five years ago Ankara’s choice would have been predictable,” said Semih Idiz, a Turkish foreign policy analyst.

“It no longer is so and this carries the seeds of another crisis with the U.S. and the EU along the ideological divide.”

Turkey seeks stable relations with close neighbors which in past decades have proved troublesome. It has an $11 billion trade with major gas supplier Iran, has become a friend of Syria, and it recently signed a “strategic partnership” with traditional foe Russia.

Turkey’s transformation from a virtual bankrupt shackled by military coups into a stable democracy with one of the world’s fastest growing economies has imbued it with confidence.

Erdogan, whose core constituency lies among religious Turks knows his assertiveness goes down well with voters who have as little trust in Washington as an average Egyptian or Pakistani.

DISSONANCE

Idiz says Erdogan, who has called Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a good friend, has become a “wild card” — a valued ally of the West whose maverick streak can prove awkward.

Turkey’s estrangement from Israel added to complications.

Strategically, Turkey straddles energy corridors to Central Asia and the Middle East, with Iraq, Iran, Syria, and the volatile South Caucasus states on its eastern borders, Russia to the north, and the Balkans to the southwest.

The United States sees Turkey, a moderate Muslim state with a secular constitution and strengthening democracy, as a bulwark of stability in the conflict-ridden Eurasian region.

via Analysis: NATO shield to test Turkey’s allegiances | Reuters.

Turkey’s government has been told that its relationship with the West could be seriously damaged if it rejects Nato’s request to house part of a £165 million ballistic missile-defence shield that is being built to protect Europe from nuclear attack.

By Praveen Swami, Diplomatic Editor

Recep Erdrogan, Turkey’s Prime Minister, is torn between his Islamist supporters and his country’s western allies Photo: REUTERS

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state and Robert Gates, the US secretary of defence, have held out the warning in behind-the-scenes talks with Turkish officials ahead of a Nato summit to be held in Lisbon on November 19, where a final decision is expected to be made on the missile-defence plan.

“Essentially we’ve told Turkey that missile-defence is an acid test of its commitment to the collective security arrangements it has with its western allies,” a senior US official told The Daily Telegraph.

Nato’s missile-defence programme is designed to protect Europe’s population from nuclear-armed missiles the West fears Iran may acquire in coming years. The plans involve radar stations that can detect ballistic missile launches, and advanced interceptor missiles which can shoot them down.

Turkey is critical to the project, since its geographical location means radar sited on its soil will be able to detect Iranian ballistic missile launches early.

The November 19 deadline has left Recep Erdrogan, Turkey’s Prime Minister, torn between his Islamist supporters and his country’s western allies. Mr Erdrogan has made improving his country’s relationship with Iran a central foreign policy. Turkey voted against a slew of new sanctions imposed by the United Nations on Iran this summer in an effort to slow down its nuclear programme.

“Sacrificing the Iranian friendship to Nato would mean an end to the independent foreign policy Turkey has followed in recent years, and the respect that that has earned it in the Islamic world, ” “, Hakan Albayrak, an influential pro-government commentator, said.

Turkey has long sought EU membership a demanded supported by the UK, but resisted by Germany and France. Islamists in Turkey, angered by the rebuff, have been arguing their country’s interests will be best served through new alliances with its eastern neighbours.

In this case, though, US diplomats believe western pressure is working. Turkey’s military has already mapped locations for specialised radar which would detect ballistic missile launches in Iran. It is also considering acquiring the US-built Patriot PAC3 interceptor missile.

Even if Turkey does join the missile-defence shield, though, some experts question if it will actually make Europe safe. Theodore Postel and George Lewis, among the world’s top authorities on missile defence, have warned that apparently-successful tests of interceptor missiles were conducted “in carefully orchestrated scenarios that have been designed to hide fundamental flaws”.

In September, 2009, Barack Obama, the US President, had authorised a £3.15 billion plan provide missile-defence shields for troops deployed in war-zones. The decision reversed earlier plans to develop larger shields to defend the populations of entire territories. But early this year, an official US review concluded the technology meant to protect deployed troops was good enough to protect territories as well.

Yousaf Butt, a nuclear expert at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, has said this plan rests on unsound foundations. Dr. Butt argued that if Iran was “irrational and suicidal enough to discount the threat of massive nuclear retaliation then a missile defence system that can theoretically intercept only some of the attacking missiles most certainly isn’t going to be a deterrent”.

Source: Telegraph

By MARC CHAMPION

ISTANBUL—Turkey’s top security body is set to discuss Wednesday whether to back a U.S.-led plan to build a missile-defense shield against rogue states—a moment that could force Ankara to choose between its longstanding westward orientation and its recent courtship of Iran.

The National Security Council, which consists of top military commanders and political leaders, is expected to debate the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s proposal for a defense shield largely built and funded by the U.S. A senior Turkish diplomat said Ankara will have to decide its position before next month’s summit of the 28-nation alliance in Lisbon, Portugal, where Turkey and other NATO members are due to decide whether to go ahead with the plan.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, left, with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in May. The U.S.-led plan to build a missile-defense shield is proving a headache for Turkey, forcing it to choose between NATO and Iran.

For most NATO members, the shield is an insurance policy against a potential missile threat from Iran. It is also a welcome compromise from the much more ambitious plan of the previous Bush administration. That proposal, which would have installed antiballistic missiles in Poland and a forward radar system in the Czech Republic, triggered a fierce backlash from Moscow.

For Turkey, however, the Obama administration’s scaled-back plan is proving a major diplomatic headache that risks forcing Ankara to choose between NATO and Iran. It is also triggering a fierce debate inside the country over where Turkey’s core interests lie. In recent days, Turkey’s religious conservative and pro-government media have argued that siding with NATO against Iran would end Turkey’s effort to build an independent foreign policy and damage its credibility in the Middle East.

Both U.S. and Turkish leaders say no decision has yet been made as to which countries will host the forward radar element of the system. Romania and Poland are expected to host land-based missiles when these are deployed, following the initial sea-launched version of the system. But Turkey, which shares a border with Iran, is the location of choice for the plan’s forward radar, according to military analysts and diplomats.

Turkish leaders have so far remained noncommittal and have asked Washington for assurances and technical details. According to diplomats familiar with the matter, Turkey is asking that NATO not name any specific country as the source of a missile-attack threat. It also seeks to ensure that all of Turkey’s territory is covered by the system and that Turkey has access to all data and a measure of control over the decision to fire. These people say Ankara also wants guarantees that non-NATO members, specifically Israel, wouldn’t gain access to the data.

“No decisions have been made yet,” said the senior Turkish diplomat. “We don’t know exactly how this system will be formed, what will be the command and control structure, the threat perception and other issues. So that’s why our talks are continuing.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, left, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton meet with Turkey Defense Minister Mehmet Vecdi Gsynul, not seen, at NATO headquarters on Oct. 14. Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Gates met in Brussels to show support for NATO’s proposed antimissile system.

Some of the Turkish requests shouldn’t be problematic, said one non-Turkish diplomat familiar with the matter. Command and control of the system would have to be at an operational, not political, level, due to the short time frame available to shoot a missile down. Turkey would therefore have a say—and a potential veto—in setting the rules of engagement. Similarly, other countries, as well as Turkey, are concerned that data should be available only to NATO members, the diplomat said.

“If Iran is not mentioned by name and the shield covers Turkey in its entirety then I think [Turkey’s government] will go along with it,” said Soli Ozel, a prominent newspaper columnist on international affairs and professor at Bilgi University in Istanbul. “If those conditions are fulfilled and the government still refuses, then all these discussions about Turkey’s direction will come back with a vengeance.”

Turkey’s military wants the shield, according to Huseyin Bagci, professor of international relations at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara. “[Iranian] Sahab missiles can reach any part of Turkey,” he said, adding that militaries focus on the capabilities of potential foes, not their intentions.

Indeed, Turkey has a plan of its own to purchase a missile system to protect its borders.Raytheon Co., maker of the Patriot missile, is one of the bidders and earlier this month announced a deal to subcontract part of the Patriot system’s manufacture to Turkey’s largest arms maker, Aselsan Elektronik Sanayi ve Ticaret AS.

Yet Turkish diplomats are concerned that positioning a NATO missile system on Iran’s border would infuriate Iran, a country that supplies about a third of Turkey’s energy and which Ankara has worked hard to court, presenting itself as a neutral party in the international dispute over Tehran’s nuclear fuel program. A NATO shield also would also cut across the grain of Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s frequent statements that Turkey doesn’t believe it is threatened by any of its neighbors.

Corrections & Amplifications:

U.S. officials have said that a location of the forward radar element of missile shield that Washington is proposing for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has yet to be decided, but that Romania and Poland would host land-based missiles in future phases of the program. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said a location for the system as a whole had yet to be decided.

Write to Marc Champion at marc.champion@wsj.com