Nato to strengthen Turkey’s defences on Syrian border

'We need to support Turkey'

Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary-General of Nato, urged Russia and Turkey to co-operate to calm tensions (Getty Images)

Nato foreign ministers meeting in Brussels have moved to bolster Turkey’s defences on the border with Syria, while insisting there was no link with last week’s downing of a Russian aircraft by Turkish forces. Even as ministers announced a raft of measures to strengthen the border with Syria, an explosion near a subway station in Istanbul wounded five people. A bomb was left on barriers on the overpass, Atilla Aydiner, the mayor for Istanbul’s Bayrampasa district, said.

The Dogan news agency said it was a hand-made cluster bomb. Turkey has been rocked by attacks from Kurdish rebels, the PKK, and Isis this year.

Speaking in Brussels, the Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, said: “We will work on further measures to assure Turkey’s security. That is something which is not related to the incident last week because that’s something which has been going on for several years.”

But other ministers were less coy in backing Turkey over the incident – the first Nato shooting of a Russian aircraft since the alliance was founded in 1948 – with Canadian Foreign Minister Stephane Dion saying bluntly, “We need to support Turkey.”

In 2013, Nato allies deployed Patriot anti-missile batteries along Turkey’s southern border to shoot down any missiles from Syria’s conflict fired into Turkish territory. But that defence is now vulnerable, with only one Spanish battery remaining, after Germany and the United States pulled out their missiles.

Mr Stoltenberg also urged Turkey and Russia to co-operate to avoid a repeat of last week’s incident. “The focus now should be on how we can de-escalate, how we can calm tensions,” he said, suggesting an update to the Cold War-era treaty known as the Vienna document, setting rules for large-scale exercises and other military activity.

Barack Obama pushed Turkey and Russia to work together to defeat Isis during separate meetings with the Turkish President Recep, Tayyip Erdogan, and on 30 November with Mr Putin in the margins of the Paris climate talks. “We all have a common enemy,” Mr Obama said.

Tensions with Moscow are likely to increase on 2 December when Nato formally offers membership talks to Montenegro. Russia has criticised previous Nato expansions, claiming they represent a strategic threat, could destabilise the Balkans, and are a “provocation”. The invitation comes 16 years after Nato bombed the tiny Balkan country during the 1999 Kosovo war.

Meanwhile, Ghent’s Mayor Daniel Termont has banned fans of Russian side Zenit St Petersburg from attending a crucial Champions League game on 9 December against KAA Gent. He noted the security risk in a city with a large Turkish community and the violent reputation of Zenit fans.