Credit:NATO Channel:11/26/12
There is already a consensus among members in the alliance to deploy Patriots in Turkish territory in an effort to help defend the country’s border from threats emerging from inside Syria, including chemical weapons that may be used by the Syrian regime or groups in Syria such as al-Qaeda, a Western diplomat told the Hürriyet Daily News yesterday.The Dutch Defense Minister Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert yesterday said that the Netherlands has not received a formal request to send Patriot missiles to NATO ally Turkey. “We are waiting for a formal request,” minister added.
“NATO does not exist for nothing,” Dutch news agency ANP also quoted Hennis-Plasschaert as saying on Nov. 18.
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said yesterday that no such request had yet been received from Ankara, but that if it was it would be considered “as a matter of urgency.”
A Turkish foreign ministry official told the Daily News yesterday that they could make the move at any moment “today or tomorrow,” but no application had been proposed as the paper went to press.Germany must appeal to its Parliament for permission to send missiles to Turkey, as the country would have to send a technical team of soldiers as well, the Western diplomat told the Daily News. This is the reason that the Netherlands, one of the two countries in Europe with Patriots available, is more likely to provide them.
“We expect Turkey to make an official request to NATO this week,” he added.
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