Hasbara Buster
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Turkey and US in critical talks over fate of missile shield plan
Top Turkish and US officials held talks in Brussels on the sidelines of a NATO meeting on Thursday, discussing Washington's plans to move forward with a missile defense system plan that Ankara insists should not intimidate its Middle East neighbors.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and Defense Minister Vecdi Gönül met with their US counterparts -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates -- a few hours after NATO's secretary-general urged member states to endorse a proposed anti-missile system that would protect Europe and North America. NATO is proposing to expand an existing system of battlefield missile defense to cover the territory of all alliance members against ballistic missiles from nations such as Iran and North Korea. NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has proposed that Russia also join the project, thus creating a network that would stretch from Vancouver to Vladivostok.
The threat is clear, the capability exists and the costs are manageable, Rasmussen said in his opening remarks at the rare joint meeting of defense and foreign ministers of the alliance. Starting today, NATO is in the sprint to the summit. The decisions we take in the next two weeks will shape the future of the world's most successful alliance. The US supports the missile defense proposal. But some governments have taken a dim view of the proposed anti-missile defense plan, citing high costs and saying the system cannot fulfill the role of a robust nuclear deterrent. For its part, Turkey has made it clear that it would approve such a plan only if it was convinced that there was a concrete threat against all NATO members, or at least a perceived threat among all NATO members.
Still, US Defense Secretary Gates sounded optimistic, while speaking to reporters on Wednesday on board of a plane en route from Hanoi, Vietnam, to Brussels.
Gates said he believed broad support existed for the phased, adaptive approach to missile defense in Europe that calls for increasingly capable sea-and-land-based missile interceptors and a range of sensors to defend against the ballistic missile threat from Iran.
Nonetheless, rather than broad-based support, Turkey is seeking a unanimous agreement over such plans. One is not smaller than the 27, is Ankaras customary motto when speaking about NATO issues, in an apparent reference to unanimity voting, which has been a cornerstone of the 28-member consensus-based alliance.
The linkage with national missile defense, so that both territories and populations are covered, is really more a matter of software -- of connecting the command and control of the different national capabilities, Gates said. That would require only a modest financial outlay beyond what already had been approved -- perhaps 85 million to 150 million euros over 10 years, he said.
In addition to consensus, Ankara also wants any planned missile-defense system to protect its entire territory, not provide partial protection. Ankara also wants the system to have a deterrent characteristic and fiercely opposes naming of a particular country as a threat against the alliance.
Ankaras fierce opposition to such naming is essentially related to potential harm to its growing ties with its neighbors such as Iran. Over the past decade, Ankara has been pro-actively engaged in a zero-problem policy with its neighbors, the wider Middle East and post-Soviet countries.
Only a few days before the summit in Brussels, a senior US defense official said Turkey would attend a NATO meeting in Brussels on Thursday and the NATO Lisbon Summit in November, where it would have to face at least two issues.
The first was Turkeys vote on NATOs missile defense capability in Turkey, and the second was what kind of role Turkey wanted in this, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy James Townsend told reporters on Tuesday.
Townsend said Turkeys decision would impact many items on the national agenda, adding that Turks were thinking very hard about this.
As we talk to Turkey, there is a realization in Ankara of the importance of missile defense systems as a concept and this is not something Turks are thinking of beyond the grasp of the alliance, he said, and stressed that the Turks did realize the security threat the alliance faced and that this was something NATO must grapple with.
The former US administration designed a plan in 2007 to deploy missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, but Obama had to scrap that plan in order please the Kremlin. Washington had said the anti-missile system would defend against a threat from Iran, but Moscow views it as upsetting the strategic balance between Russian and Western nuclear forces.
US President Barack Obama approved a plan last year that included the deployment of increasingly capable sea-and-land-based missile interceptors and a range of sensors to Europe to defend against the growing ballistic missile threat from Iran. The new Obama plan would deploy systems designed to shoot down short and medium-range missiles, with construction to begin, in phases, around 2011. Systems to counter longer-range missiles would be in place around 2020.
A general approach that is embraced by all NATO members should emerge on this issue, Turkish diplomatic sources told Todays Zaman on Wednesday. While admitting that US officials had been talking to the Turkish side regarding the issue of deciding who would be willing to host missile defense systems, a source elaborated: We would be reluctant if the threat is perceived by some NATO members and not by others, the Czech Republic or Poland for example. Turkey would say OK to an increase in NATO members security in general, but a widely accepted framework should be agreed on for perceiving such a threat.
Turkey and US in critical talks over fate of missile shield plan
Top Turkish and US officials held talks in Brussels on the sidelines of a NATO meeting on Thursday, discussing Washington's plans to move forward with a missile defense system plan that Ankara insists should not intimidate its Middle East neighbors.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and Defense Minister Vecdi Gönül met with their US counterparts -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates -- a few hours after NATO's secretary-general urged member states to endorse a proposed anti-missile system that would protect Europe and North America. NATO is proposing to expand an existing system of battlefield missile defense to cover the territory of all alliance members against ballistic missiles from nations such as Iran and North Korea. NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has proposed that Russia also join the project, thus creating a network that would stretch from Vancouver to Vladivostok.
The threat is clear, the capability exists and the costs are manageable, Rasmussen said in his opening remarks at the rare joint meeting of defense and foreign ministers of the alliance. Starting today, NATO is in the sprint to the summit. The decisions we take in the next two weeks will shape the future of the world's most successful alliance. The US supports the missile defense proposal. But some governments have taken a dim view of the proposed anti-missile defense plan, citing high costs and saying the system cannot fulfill the role of a robust nuclear deterrent. For its part, Turkey has made it clear that it would approve such a plan only if it was convinced that there was a concrete threat against all NATO members, or at least a perceived threat among all NATO members.
Still, US Defense Secretary Gates sounded optimistic, while speaking to reporters on Wednesday on board of a plane en route from Hanoi, Vietnam, to Brussels.
Gates said he believed broad support existed for the phased, adaptive approach to missile defense in Europe that calls for increasingly capable sea-and-land-based missile interceptors and a range of sensors to defend against the ballistic missile threat from Iran.
Nonetheless, rather than broad-based support, Turkey is seeking a unanimous agreement over such plans. One is not smaller than the 27, is Ankaras customary motto when speaking about NATO issues, in an apparent reference to unanimity voting, which has been a cornerstone of the 28-member consensus-based alliance.
The linkage with national missile defense, so that both territories and populations are covered, is really more a matter of software -- of connecting the command and control of the different national capabilities, Gates said. That would require only a modest financial outlay beyond what already had been approved -- perhaps 85 million to 150 million euros over 10 years, he said.
In addition to consensus, Ankara also wants any planned missile-defense system to protect its entire territory, not provide partial protection. Ankara also wants the system to have a deterrent characteristic and fiercely opposes naming of a particular country as a threat against the alliance.
Ankaras fierce opposition to such naming is essentially related to potential harm to its growing ties with its neighbors such as Iran. Over the past decade, Ankara has been pro-actively engaged in a zero-problem policy with its neighbors, the wider Middle East and post-Soviet countries.
Only a few days before the summit in Brussels, a senior US defense official said Turkey would attend a NATO meeting in Brussels on Thursday and the NATO Lisbon Summit in November, where it would have to face at least two issues.
The first was Turkeys vote on NATOs missile defense capability in Turkey, and the second was what kind of role Turkey wanted in this, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy James Townsend told reporters on Tuesday.
Townsend said Turkeys decision would impact many items on the national agenda, adding that Turks were thinking very hard about this.
As we talk to Turkey, there is a realization in Ankara of the importance of missile defense systems as a concept and this is not something Turks are thinking of beyond the grasp of the alliance, he said, and stressed that the Turks did realize the security threat the alliance faced and that this was something NATO must grapple with.
The former US administration designed a plan in 2007 to deploy missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, but Obama had to scrap that plan in order please the Kremlin. Washington had said the anti-missile system would defend against a threat from Iran, but Moscow views it as upsetting the strategic balance between Russian and Western nuclear forces.
US President Barack Obama approved a plan last year that included the deployment of increasingly capable sea-and-land-based missile interceptors and a range of sensors to Europe to defend against the growing ballistic missile threat from Iran. The new Obama plan would deploy systems designed to shoot down short and medium-range missiles, with construction to begin, in phases, around 2011. Systems to counter longer-range missiles would be in place around 2020.
A general approach that is embraced by all NATO members should emerge on this issue, Turkish diplomatic sources told Todays Zaman on Wednesday. While admitting that US officials had been talking to the Turkish side regarding the issue of deciding who would be willing to host missile defense systems, a source elaborated: We would be reluctant if the threat is perceived by some NATO members and not by others, the Czech Republic or Poland for example. Turkey would say OK to an increase in NATO members security in general, but a widely accepted framework should be agreed on for perceiving such a threat.
Turkey and US in critical talks over fate of missile shield plan
