[Hurriyet Daily News] The Turkish General Staff has announced that a NATO...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis....
Boeing E-3A Sentry Airborne Warning & Control System (AWACS) aircraft has begun surveillance in Turkish airspace as part of assurance measures for
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
, while noting that NATO’s mission would be conducted "periodically" in the coming months.
"In line with the Syria crisis and developments taking place in the region and within the content of reassurance measures for Turkey, a NATO AWACS plane has begun conducting [surveillance] duty in Turkish airspace from March 12 to March 15," the General Staff said in a written statement posted on its official website late on March 12.
"These duties are planned to be conducted regularly and within certain periods in the coming months too," the General Staff added.
In December, after tensions flared between Turkey and Russia, the U.S and other NATO allies decided on a package of assurance measures for NATO member Turkey in view of the volatile situation in the region. Alongside an increased AWACS presence, the package also included an increased naval presence in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
"We agreed with Turkey on Feb. 11 to intensify [and] to increase surveillance of [the] border between Turkey and Syria. We are in the process of establishing [this] with Turkey in the best possible way," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told a joint news conference with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels on March 10.
NATO’s ongoing mission in Turkish airspace is being conducted within the framework of the alliance’s main duty of collective defense and of the principle of indivisible security of the alliance, the Turkish General Staff said. The mission aimed at "displaying NATO’S support to Turkey and the alliance’s unity and solidarity and providing deterrence vis-à -vis potential hostile threats against the alliance’s territorial integrity," it said.