Tag: NATO radar system

  • NATO installs X-band radar in Turkey to monitor Iran missile launches

    NATO installs X-band radar in Turkey to monitor Iran missile launches

    Special to WorldTribune.com

    ANKARA — Turkey has reported the installation of an advanced U.S.-origin radar for NATO’s ballistic missile defense shield.

    Officials said NATO oversaw the installation of the AN/TPY-2 X-band radar at a military facility in the Turkish province of Malatya, about 620 kilometers southeast of Ankara. They said the radar was being operated by both U.S. and Turkish military personnel.

    “The missile defense radar has begun operations,” an official said.

    European Missile Shield Began Activated

    Early warning radar device X-band, AN/TPY-2.

    The Turkish Foreign Ministry has confirmed the installation of the X-band radar, meant to monitor ballistic missile launches in neighboring Iran. The Teheran regime has warned that the BMD platform would be deemed a target in any war between the West and Iran.

    On Jan. 17, the Turkish daily Zaman reported that Turkish intelligence determined an Iranian plot to attack the U.S. embassy and consulates throughout the country in retaliation for the NATO radar. Zaman said the warning of a strike by either Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or the Lebanese-based Hizbullah was relayed to police in all 81 districts and called on authorities to monitor the arrival of foreigners.

    The sources said AN/TPY-2, produced by the U.S. company Raytheon, began operations on Jan. 1, 2012. They said Turkey has imposed strict limitations on the use of data from the radar, including a ban on non-NATO members such as Israel.

    Turkey has demanded U.S. compensation for the deployment of the X-band radar. The sources said Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan has requested U.S. military aid as well as the sale of the Reaper combat unmanned aerial vehicle, a platform long denied by Washington.

    One U.S. Republican presidential candidate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, said Turkey was moving away from its commitment to NATO. Perry said Ankara was being ruled by “what many would perceive to be Islamic terrorists.”

    “Turkey joined NATO while the governor was still two years old,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said on Jan. 17. “It is a member that has made important contributions to the trans-Atlantic alliance’s conflict-full history. It is among countries that are at the front lines in the fight against terrorism.”

    via NATO installs X-band radar in Turkey to monitor Iran missile launches | World Tribune.

  • Can Turkey avert Mideast disaster?

    Can Turkey avert Mideast disaster?

    120110100916 ayoob turkish foreign minister iran story top

    Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, left, meets with Iran’s President Ahmadinejad, right, in Tehran on January 5.

    STORY HIGHLIGHTS

    Mohammed Ayoob: Turkey’s minister visits Iran as tensions rise between West, Iran

    Ayoob notes Western nations vow stricter sanctions on Iran over nuclear program

    Iran vows to close Strait of Hormuz; he says Turkey caught in the middle of disputes

    Turkey holding talks between West, Iran, he says, might head off confrontation

    Editor’s note: Mohammed Ayoob is University Distinguished Professor of International Relations at Michigan State University and adjunct scholar at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding

    (CNN) — Turkey’s peripatetic Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu spent last Thursday in Tehran in negotiations with leading Iranian officials. Davutoglu’s visit comes at a very critical juncture in U.S.-Iran relations, as saber-rattling dangerously escalates over the United States’ ever-more stringent sanctions and Iran’s threat to close the Strait of Hormuz.

    Davutoglu’s visit also comes as Shia-Sunni tensions in Iraq rise in the wake of the American withdrawal. These tensions threaten the very survival of Iraq as a united country and have the potential to adversely affect Iran-Turkey relations — in light of Iran’s strong support of the Shia in Iraq and Turkey’s sympathy for the Sunni cause.

    Iran and Turkey’s divergent stances on Syria as well as Turkey’s decision to host a NATO anti-missile radar facility close to the Iranian border have added even more to the strain. Reports suggest that much of the talks between Davutoglu and his Iranian counterparts were devoted to ironing out some of these bilateral differences.

    A major objective of the Davutoglu visit, however, was to kick-start negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 over Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. The group comprises the permanent five members of the U.N. Security Council: France, the UK, China, Russia and the United States, plus Germany. Major Western powers believe the enrichment program is part of Iran’s clandestine ambition to acquire nuclear weapons capability.

    Negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 have dragged on for years, with Iran insisting on its right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to enrich uranium for civilian purposes and the Western powers demanding that it suspend its enrichment program to allay fears that it is covertly engaged in building nuclear weapons.

    The most recent International Atomic Energy Agency report, issued on November 8, 2011, brought the dispute to a boiling point by stating for the first time that it had documentation that led it to believe nuclear weapons work had been done under a “structured program” up to 2003, and that “some may still be ongoing.”

    While this information was not new, the report provided the United States and its European allies the excuse to impose even more stringent sanctions on Iran. The proposed sanctions could seriously damage prospects for Iran’s energy exports by targeting the Central Bank of Iran and preventing it from carrying on financial transactions abroad. They are thus aimed at hitting Iran where it really hurts, although the prospect of Iran’s oil exports being forced off the market also threatens to drastically increase the price of crude internationally.

    Iran’s ruling elite perceives sanctions that target Iran’s export of crude as existential threats. Iran has, therefore, threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth to a quarter of the world’s oil passes, if sanctions are imposed on its export of crude. Iran’s capacity to block the strait for any length of time might be debatable, but it is clear that threats and counter-threats have reached a point where a shooting war cannot be ruled out completely.

    This is the last thing Turkey wants to see, caught as it is between its NATO membership and its dependence on energy supplies from Iran. Ankara is fully aware that the cost of a war with Iran would far exceed that of the American invasion and occupation of Iraq. Turkey realizes that Iran is no Iraq, and that Tehran can inflict major damage on American interests and those of its allies, including Turkey, in the Middle East.

    In this context, it becomes clear that it was Davutoglu’s primary mission in Tehran to persuade the Iranians to resume negotiations with P5+1. He delivered a note from the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, inviting Iran to resume such talks, and Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi apparently responded positively.

    It is worth noting that Iran’s chief negotiator on nuclear issues, Saeed Jalili, announced a few days ago that Iran was willing to resume negotiations with P5+1 on the nuclear enrichment issue. Salehi suggested in his news conference with Davutoglu that Turkey would be the ideal venue for these negotiations, a suggestion that is likely to be accepted by Ashton. Istanbul was the venue for the last round of negotiations a year ago and it appears logical that the parties reconvene there.

    It is likely these negotiations will be re-started, and with Turkey facilitating and providing a venue for them, Turkey could be primarily instrumental in preventing a catastrophe in the Middle East. It could even help ease Western sanctions against Iran, especially the most recent threatening financial transactions with Iran’s Central Bank, which could hurt Turkey’s ability to pay for its energy supply purchases from Iran.

    It would also help put Iran-Turkey relations, recently mired in disputes surrounding Syria and NATO’s radar facilities in Turkey, on a more even keel and help defuse tensions between these two most important political actors in the Middle East.

    via Can Turkey avert Mideast disaster? – CNN.com.

  • Turkey arrests anti-NATO protesters

    Turkey arrests anti-NATO protesters

    hosseinsharifi20111227145646797File photo of Turkish police

    Turkish police have arrested 16 protesters during a demonstration against Ankara’s plan to host a NATO missile system in the country, Press TV reports.

    According to informed sources in Turkey, police attacked the demonstration in the southwestern city of Antalya on Tuesday.

    The demonstrators, who were mainly high school students, issued a statement calling for “a free Turkey,” the sources said.

    Over the past weeks, Turkish activists in different cities across the country have held demonstrations to voice their opposition to the deployment of the system, in the eastern province of Malatya, saying that they do not want Turkey to turn into “a base for the US and Israel.”

    Last week, police cracked down on a demonstration held in the northwestern city of Edirne.

    Ankara announced its agreement to deploy the US-made system in September and according to the Turkish media, the system will be operational next week.

    Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said that the missile system is not against any country, although commentators say that Turkey faces no missile threat from its neighbors, and did not need to accept the system.

    HSN/JR/HGH

    via PressTV – Turkey arrests anti-NATO protesters.

  • Iran will definitely strike Turkey if attacked

    Iran will definitely strike Turkey if attacked

    ‘Iran will definitely strike Turkey if attacked’

    By JPOST.COM STAFF

    12/12/2011 10:30

    iranIranian official reiterates anger over Turkish agreement to house NATO facilities, threatens “grave consequences.”

    An Iranian security official said that Iran would “definitely” strike NATO positions in Turkey if it were attacked, according to a Monday report by the Turkish daily Hurriyet.

    “We are closely monitoring the relations with Turkey in the National Security Commission of the parliament. Iran has warned Turkey before that the deployment of the system will have grave consequences.” said Hossein Ibrahimi, vice-chairman of the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy commission.

    Ibrahimi also referenced a similar threat made at the end of November by Amir Ali Hajizadeh, head of the Revolutionary Guards’ aerospace division. “General Hajizadeh’s remarks are entirely true and when we are attacked, it is our natural right to defend ourselves,” Hurriyet quoted Ibrahimi as saying.

    Tehran has made clear its displeasure at Turkey’s September decision to deploy a NATO missile early warning system, which Iran sees as a US ploy to protect Israel from any counter-attack should the Jewish state target Iran’s nuclear facilities.

    Once-warm relations between Iran and Turkey have been strained this year due to the missile shield and Ankara’s outspoken criticism of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s violent crackdown on popular unrest.

    Turkey and Iran, the Middle East’s two major non-Arab Muslim states, are vying for influence in the post-Arab Spring region and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s military adviser accused Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan of setting its foreign policy to please Washington.

    Reuters contributed to this report

    via ‘Iran will definitely strike Turkey if att… JPost – Middle East.

  • Turkey to improve its missile capabilities

    Turkey to improve its missile capabilities

    The country’s Supreme Military Council will discuss the purchase of long range missiles to improve its national missile defense capabilities next week. Final approval for the plan will be made by the Defense Industry Implementation Committee by the end of the month.

    MISSILEIran and Russia objected to Ankara’s decision to host an X-band radar system at a military base in Kurecik as part of a NATO-backed missile shield in the past. Iran threatened to hit NATO’s defense installations in Turkey if Iran is attacked by the United States or Israel. Russia also threatened to deploy missiles to target the missile defense system in Europe.

    Turkey will acquire 13 missile batteries and 72 missiles if the purchase is approved.

     

  • Iran would attack Turkey if U.S. or Israel go after their nuclear weapons

    Iran would attack Turkey if U.S. or Israel go after their nuclear weapons

    ‘We will target NATO’s missile shields in Turky,’ says Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander

    BY Bloomberg News

    Sunday, November 27 2011, 2:27 PM

    image

    Iranian sodiers march past President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (C) and military officials during the Army Day military parade in Tehran on April 18, 2011. AFP PHOTO/ATTA KENARE (Photo credit should read ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images)

    Iranian soldiers march past President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and military officials during the Army Day military parade in Tehran in April.

    An Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander said Iran will target a North Atlantic Treaty Organization defense system in Turkey if its nuclear program is attacked by the U.S. or Israel.

    “If there is a threat we will target NATO’s missile shields in Turkey and will then go after the next targets,” Ali Hajizadeh, Commander of the air defense division of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. said yesterday.

    The warning is part of a new strategy devised by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that consists of responding “to threats with threats,” Hajizadeh said according to the state-run Mehr news agency. Iran’s new stance is the result of increased threats by the U.S. and Israel, he said.

    Tensions between Iran and Western countries have increased after the International Atomic Energy Agency released a report on Nov. 8 suggesting Iran was seeking to develop nuclear weapons. The report was followed by additional sanctions imposed last week by the U.S. and U.K. against the Persian Gulf country, which target its central bank and oil industry.

    Iran says the IAEA report was politically motivated and insists its program is civilian and needed for power generation and medical research.

    U.S. president Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have said military force against Iran is not off the table and Israeli President Shimon Peres said Nov. 4. the possibility of using force through “serious sanctions” or “a military operation,” to halt Iran’s nuclear program was drawing nearer.

    Turkey will host an early warning radar as part of a NATO defense system, which will help protect against ballistic missile threats and is part of a strategic initiative agreed upon last year, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said Sept. 2

    A military installation in the Turkish town of Kurecik, about 700 kilometers west of the border with Iran, has been chosen as the radar site, Associated Press said, citing Turkish officials.

    via Iran would attack Turkey if U.S. or Israel go after their nuclear weapons – NY Daily News.