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| The Grand Turk |
| Turkey hails NATO agreement as "meeting Ankara''s demands" |
| 2010-11-21 |
| (KUNA) -- Turkish President Abdullah Gul said Saturday the NATO summit in Lisbon agreed to adopt the alliance's New Strategic Concept for the coming decade which took into consideration Ankara's demands. "The agreement falls in the framework of what we wished; we are pleased about this," Turkey's state-run Anatolia news agency quoted Gul as saying. He made the remarks in a presser in Lisbon where he attended the summit meeting of NATO Heads of State and Government. Turkey, one of the 28 NATO member states, maintains close ties with its southeastern neighbor Iran and was against labeling Tehran as a threat to the alliance. "We have met our obligations to the alliance while the NATO institutions including the secretary general (Anders Fogh Rasmussen) understood our sensitivities," the Turkish leader pointed out. The New Strategic Concept, endorsed at the summit, serve as the alliance's road map for the next 10-15 years. Despite their concerns about Iran's nuclear and missile ambitions, the NATO leaders did not explicitly identify Tehran as a potential enemy in the document. Gul said he discussed the blueprint of the document with the ministers of foreign affairs and defense before the summit. The draft strategy included two main points namely; the deployment of the anti-ballistic missile defense system in Europe and the NATO-European Union relationship. "Regarding the first point, we have initially been against naming a specific country as a potential threat and the NATO summit approved this demand. As for the second point, Turkey is one of the NATO members which have yet to get the EU membership," Gul pointed out. Under the strategy, a limited number of US anti-ballistic missile interceptors and radar systems will be deployed in East European countries such as Romania and Poland and possibly a in Turkey with a view to expanding the European missile defenses already in place. Commenting on the NATO mission in Afghanistan, another key topic on the agenda of the Lisbon summit, Gul reiterated Turkey's stance that military force only could not solve the conflict. To stabilize the situation in the war-torn country there has to be a political process whereby the hearts of the Afghan people could be won, he affirmed. Led by Gul, Turkey's delegation to the one-day gathering included Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #3 Turkey, one of the 28 NATO member states, maintains close ties with its southeastern neighbor Iran and was against labeling Tehran as a threat to the alliance. But labeling Athens as a threat.... well, not so much of a problem. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2010-11-21 12:30 |
| #2 The Turks are also offering to allow the 4th Infantry Division to transit to Iraq. Although, I suspect this bargaining chip is somewhat past its use-by date. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2010-11-21 12:25 |
| #1 So, in exchange for this are the Turks going to send a large military detachment to Afghanistan? Like, to fight on NATOs side, not with the Taliban? |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2010-11-21 04:11 |