Official: NATO OKs Patriot missiles for Turkey

(AP) Official: NATO OKs Patriot missiles for Turkey
By SLOBODAN LEKIC and BRADLEY KLAPPER
Associated Press
BRUSSELS
A NATO official says the military alliance has approved plans to send Patriot anti-missile systems to southern Turkey to bolster its defense against strikes from neighboring Syria.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen was expected to make the announcement later Tuesday.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

NATO foreign ministers are expected Tuesday to approve Turkey’s request for Patriot anti-missile systems to bolster its defense against strikes from neighboring Syria, which Western governments fear is a growing possibility given the increased desperation of President Bashar Assad’s regime.

Turkey has been highly supportive of the Syrian opposition and wants the Patriots to defend against possible retaliatory attacks by Syrian missiles, some of which are capable of carrying chemical warheads. Syria is reported to have an array of artillery rockets, as well as short- and medium-range missiles in its arsenal, and mortar rounds and shells from across the border already have killed five Turks.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned as he arrived for a two-day meeting of foreign ministers that “if anybody uses chemical weapons I would expect an immediate reaction from the international community.” His comments echoed a Monday warning from U.S. President Barack Obama that there would be consequences if Assad made the “tragic mistake” of deploying chemical weapons.

Though Fogh Rasmussen offered no specifics, U.S. officials say the White House and its allies are weighing military options after U.S. intelligence reports showed the Syrian regime may be readying them and desperate enough to use them.

The Patriots, however, are strictly defensive weapons. Officials say they would be programmed so that they could only intercept Syrian weapons that have crossed into Turkish airspace, and not penetrate Syrian territory pre-emptively. That means they would have no effect on any government offensives _ chemical or conventional _ that remain strictly inside Syria’s national borders.

Germany and the Netherlands are expected to provide to Turkey several batteries of the latest PAC-3 version of the U.S.-built Patriots air defense systems, which is optimized to intercept incoming missiles. The U.S. would likely fill any gaps, possibly by sending some from its stocks in Europe.

The exact details of the deployment and the number of batteries to be sent will be determined by NATO’s military committee based on a report by a joint team that has been studying possible basing sites. Parliaments in both Germany and the Netherlands must then approve the move, which would also involve several hundred soldiers. It’s unclear if any American soldiers would need to be deployed.

NATO doesn’t want to be drawn into the Syrian conflict and Fogh Rasmussen stressed that any missile deployment would be defensive only.

“It would in no way support a no-fly zone or any offensive operation,” he said.

German ambassador Martin Erdmann said the Bundestag will probably take up the matter next week. The actual deployment would then occur “within weeks” once the political decision is made, Fogh Rasmussen said.

Due to the complexity and size of the Patriot batteries _ including their radars, command-and-control centers, communications and support facilities _ they cannot be flown quickly by air to Turkey and will probably have to travel by sea, alliance officials said.

NATO foreign ministers met Tuesday with their Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov. Moscow has criticized the planned deployment of the Patriots saying that it would further inflame tensions in the region. The Kremlin has stymied more than a year of international efforts to apply global pressure on the Assad regime, its strongest ally in the Arab world, but officials say it has expressed equal concern about the threat of any chemical weapons use.

Addressing Lavrov and the other 27 NATO foreign ministers, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Washington and Moscow still have major differences on the political transition needed in Syria. She didn’t address Turkey’s request, but said the alliance’s effort to advance missile defense in general “is not targeted at Russia, nor does it threaten Russia.”

After the talks, Lavrov said Russia wasn’t objecting to the Patriots.

“We are not trying to interfere with Turkey’s right” to defense, he told reporters. “We are just saying the threat should not be overstated.”

Lavrov stressed that Syrian artillery strikes into Turkey were accidental. And he warned that the conflict “is being increasingly militarized,” and that more weaponry in the area would only add to that problem.

Syria, which is party to the 1925 Geneva Protocol banning chemical weapons in war, has repeatedly insisted it would not use them even if it did possess such weapons.

Turkey, which has been a NATO member since the 1950s, has been one of the harshest critics of the Assad regime. It shares a 566-mile (911-kilometer) frontier with Syria, and has allowed rebels leaders to take shelter and organize on Turkish soil along with tens of thousands of refugees living in camps across the border. The frontier is also a main transit point for weapons smuggling by rebels.

NATO installed long-range Patriot batteries on Turkish territory during the 1991 and 2003 Iraq wars. They were never used and were withdrawn a few months later.

The Patriot, which first entered service three decades ago, has been successively upgraded over the years. Although optimized for anti-aircraft defense, advanced versions can also be used against cruise missiles and against medium- and short-range ballistic missiles. They have a maximum range of about 160 kilometers (100 miles) and can reach altitudes of about 80,000 feet.

Syria is reported to have an array of artillery rockets, as well as short- and medium-range missiles _ including Soviet-built SS-21 Scarabs and Scud-B missiles _ in its arsenal. The latter are capable of carrying chemical warheads.

Syria’s conflict started 20 months ago as an uprising against President Bashar Assad, whose family has ruled the country for four decades. It quickly morphed into a civil war, with rebels taking up arms to fight back against a bloody crackdown by the government. According to activists, at least 40,000 people have been killed in Syria since March 2011.

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Associated Press writer Elizabeth A. Kennedy contributed to this reported from Beirut.