World Press on Turkey's Patriots Request (November 27, 2012)

Hurriyet published an article by Murat Yetkin devoted to Turkey's request to deploy Nato Patriots missiles. The article is headlined 'What will Patriots bring to Turkey?' 

"To give a short answer to the question above before expanding it further, it could be said that the Patriot missiles will bring the reiteration of the NATO umbrella against a possible attack from the Middle East - today from Syria, tomorrow perhaps as a result of an Israeli-Iranian conflict or another threat that is not seen today," the article begins.

"Well, there is no need to debate the fashionable mid-1990s thesis that NATO would die following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Instead, it can easily be said that NATO is now extending its threat assessments further, and the Russian worry does have some basis. Plus, with NATO approval of Patriot deployment, Ankara has saved itself from a potential political trap that the civil war in Syria would turn into a bilateral matter. Instead, it is now an international one," the author believes.

"But more than those, the deployment has endorsed the strategic value of Turkey regarding Western military-political system. It seems that the Missile Shied early warning radar site based earlier this year in Kürecik, in the eastern Turkish province of Malatya, has added value to Turkey’s strategic position. This is as a third asset following the Turkish straits and the İncirlik air base near the southern province of Adana, near the Syrian border, with an operation radius simultaneously covering most of the energy knots and channels of the region. Despite Iran’s threats saying that the Kürecik site and the Patriots would turn Turkey into a target, their deterrent value could be much more important than their being a target," the article reads.

"The deployment of Patriot batteries in Turkey could positively change the parameters of the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, and could endorse the image of NATO as a deterrent power as well," the author concludes.