Brussels: Nato Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Tuesday that Nato is ready to defend Turkey in a direct warning to Syria after a week of cross-border fighting escalated between the two countries.
Turkey has sent additional fighter jets to reinforce an air base close to its border with Syria where shells killed five Turkish civilians last week.
The cross-border attacks can spark a regional crisis.
Syria has defended its shelling of neighbouring Turkey as an accidental outcome of its 18-month-old civil war.
The comments by Rasmussen were the strongest show of support to Turkey since the firing began Wednesday, though the solidarity is largely symbolic, AP reported.
”Obviously Turkey can rely on Nato solidarity,” Fogh Rasmussen said ahead of a meeting of Nato defense ministers in Brussels. ”We have all necessary plans in place to protect and defend Turkey if necessary.”
But he said he could not discuss contingency plans.
”We hope it won’t be necessary to activate such plans, we do hope to see a political solution to the conflict in Syria,” he said.
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