U.S. Defense Chief Orders Patriot Missiles to Turkey
U.S. defense chief orders Patriot missiles to Turkey
December 14, 2012Reuters - U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta signed an order on Friday to send two Patriot missile batteries to Turkey with 400 American personnel to operate them, in a move by NATO members to bolster Turkey's defenses against the threat of Syrian missiles.
NATO-member Turkey has repeatedly scrambled jets along the countries' joint frontier and responded in kind when shells from the Syrian conflict came down inside its borders, fanning fears that the civil war could spread to destabilize the region."The purpose of this deployment is to signal very strongly that the United States, working closely with our NATO allies, is going to support the defense of Turkey, especially with potential threats emanating from Syria," spokesman George Little said.
Little declined to say where the U.S. batteries would be located and said the systems would be deployed to Turkey for an unspecified amount of time.
"We expect them to be deployed in the coming weeks," Little said.