Kremlin issues new warning on Patriot missiles in Turkey

The deployment of Patriot air-defense systems at the Turkish-Syrian border means NATO is getting involved in the Syrian conflict, Russia’s envoy to NATO said on Friday, RIA Novoti informs.

The alliance announced on Tuesday it would deploy Patriot air defense systems in NATO-member Turkey along the border with Syria.

“This is the first step showing that NATO is after all becoming involved in the conflict and we do not rule out that this involvement will deepen as a result of some incident or provocation,” Alexander Grushko said.

“This system [Patriot] is designed to fight against warplanes and has an anti-missile capability. However, taking realistic scenarios into consideration, it is difficult to believe that Syria is interested in ratcheting up tensions in the region.”