Turkey will make an official request to its NATO partners to deploy Patriot missiles along its border with Syria, Russian media reports. The surface-to-air missiles will be able to shoot down aircraft up to 160 kilometers away. Russia already announced to respond in kind.
The request to NATO will be made "imminently," a senior Turkish Foreign Ministry official told the media.
The possibility of enforcing a no-fly zone in Syria, where rebel fighters would be protected from attacks by the government's air force, has been on the table for some time despite NATO's reluctance to intervene in the Syrian conflict without a mandate from the UN Security Council.
The Patriot missile deployment is one of several scenarios currently being considered, the official said.
Plans for the deployment were put on hold pending the results of the US election, the source explained, speaking on condition of anonymity because of ministry prohibitions on speaking with the media.
Russia to Target Turkey with anti-Aircraft Missiles
Meanwhile, it was reported several days ago that Russia has begun installing a new state-of-the-art anti-aircraft weapon system in its southern military region with an eye toward targeting Turkey in response to a NATO missile defense shield outpost that was recently established in East Anatolia, daily Hürriyet reported.
The installation will be completed by the end of this year, said Russian Col. Igor Gorbul, adding that the S-400 anti-aircraft missiles were capable of destroying all types of airplanes, as well as ultra-stratospheric and ballistic missiles.
Turkish-Russian tensions rose last week after Ankara forced down a Syrian passenger plane en route from Moscow to Damascus on suspicions that it was carrying weapons, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov moved to defuse tensions by saying the country's bilateral relationship would not be damaged by the incident.
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