BGN News:
Spanish Defense Minister Pedro Morenes announced that Spain will keep its Patriot Missile Defense Batteries in Turkey as part of the ongoing NATO mission, only a week after both Germany and the US announced that they would be pulling their own batteries out in the coming months.
NATO launched the “Active Fence” mission in 2012, deploying Patriot Missile Defense Batteries along Turkey’s border with Syria against possible ballistic missile attacks by the Assad regime in Damascus.
“Active Fence” originally involved batteries from the US, Netherlands and Germany, which were deployed in the southeastern provinces of Adana, Kahramanmaraş and Gaziantep. After the Netherlands withdrew from its deployment in Adana at the beginning of 2015, Spain came on board to replace them.
However, last week both Germany and the US announced they would be withdrawing their batteries once their mandates expired, in January 2016 and October 2015 respectively.
“Unless NATO demands otherwise, Spain will continue its mission in Turkey,” said Defense Minister Morenes. He added that he would be meeting with high-level NATO officials soon regarding the departure of Germany and the US and their reasons for it.
Certain media outlets have speculated that the recent withdrawals may have be related to Turkey’s prioritizing of its conflict against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) while the West demands a more direct involvement against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) instead.
Germany has explicitly denied that this was the case, noting that the decision to withdraw was taken in June, long before the escalation of violence between Ankara and the PKK.
