ANKARA: Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said yesterday Nato states had agreed to supply Turkey with an advanced Patriot missile system to defend against Syrian attacks.
Talks on its deployment are in the final stage, he said. Only the United States, the Netherlands have the appropriate system avaialble.
In recent months artillery and mortar fire from Syria has landed inside Turkey, increasing concern that the anti-Assad uprising could turn into a regional conflagration.
Turkey has often scrambled fighter jets along the border in a warning to Damascus as Syrian war planes and helicopters bomb rebel positions just a few kilometres (miles) from Turkish soil.
Dogan news agency reported that two anti-aircraft missiles fired from Syria had struck a vegetable market and a road in the border district of Turkey’s Hatay province yesterday.
Turkey, Gulf Arab states and Western powers have all called for Assad - whose Alawite family has ruled Sunni Muslim-majority Syria in autocratic fashion for four decades - to relinquish power. Assad counts on the support of long-time ally Russia and Shi’ite Iran. Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Monday that any missile deployment would be a defensive measure and not to enforce a no-fly zone over Syria. Afp
