AFP/Damascus
Syria said yesterday that plans by Turkey to site Patriot missiles along its border was “a new act of provocation”, while allies Iran and Russia warned the move would complicate the situation and could spark a regional conflagration.
Turkey turned to its Nato partners earlier this week to request the deployment of the surface-to-air Patriot missiles to protect its troubled border with Syria, which is engulfed in a war that has cost some 40,000 lives.
In its first reaction, the Syrian foreign ministry accused Ankara of causing “tension and destruction”.
The action is “a new act of provocation”, state television quoted a foreign ministry official as saying.
“Syria holds (Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip) Erdogan responsible for the militarisation of the situation at the border between Syria and Turkey, and the increase of tension and destruction to the detriment of the Syrian and Turkish peoples,” the unidentified official said.
The Syrian government has long accused Turkey of harbouring, financing and arming rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad.
In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that any deployment of Patriot missiles by Turkey on its border may create a temptation to use the weapons and spark a “very serious armed conflict” involving Nato.
“I understand that no one has any intention to see Nato get sucked into the Syrian crisis,” Lavrov said. But “the more arms are being accumulated, the greater the risk that they will be used.”
Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen sought to reassure Russia, saying it would be a “defensive only” measure.
Nato spokesman Carmen Romero said Rasmussen had told Lavrov in a telephone conversation that such a deployment “would in no way support a no-fly zone or any offensive operations.”
Rasmussen said that “such a deployment would augment Turkey’s air defence capabilities to defend the population and territory of Turkey,” Romero said.
“It would serve as a deterrent to possible threats and as such would contribute to the de-escalation of the crisis along Nato’s southeastern border,” he added.
Iran’s foreign ministry accused Turkey of aggravating the situation.
“Not only does it not help resolve the situation in Syria but it will also aggravate and complicate the situation,” spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said, quoted on state television.
“The insistence (of certain countries) to resolve the Syrian crisis through military means is the main cause of tensions and threats in the region,” he said.
Meanwhile, Iran’s influential parliament speaker Ali Larijani was in Damascus at the start of a three-nation tour.
Larijani accused regional powers he did not name of causing “problems” in Syria.
“Syria has played an important role in supporting the resistance (against Israel and the US) but some in the region want to carry out actions with negative consequences, to cause problems in Syria,” he told journalists.
On the ground, violence erupted in flashpoints across the country, while tensions spiked in the northeast near Turkey, where Kurdish militia are engaged in a standoff with rebels.
Following several days of combat against a rebel advance into Kurdish areas, two main Kurdish groups have agreed to join forces, an activist said.





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