Turkey’s foreign ministry announced on Thursday that US warships will permanently remain in the eastern Mediterranean in order to support Turkey’s defense needs.
"Recently,
the American warship visited (Turkey’s naval base) Aksaz. Such visits
will continue. The destroyer USS Donald Cook and similar ships will
always be in the east of the Mediterranean Sea for the protection
of Turkey, their presence will be increased," RIA Novosti cites Turkish
ministry spokesperson Tanju Bilgic as saying.
On
October 30, an unnamed senior US defense official said that dozens
of F-15C jets would join A-10 ground attack aircraft at the Incirlik Air
Base in south Turkey. Earlier, around a dozen "tank killer" A-10s
landed at Incirlik in mid-October.
Although the Pentagon announced that the deployment is to ‘ensure the
safety’ of America’s NATO allies, the move was seen by some as a
counter to Russia’s airstrikes in Syria.
"I didn’t say it wasn’t about Russia," Laura
Seal told The Daily Beast late Tuesday in a follow-up to comments
describing the deployment as a way to "ensure the safety" of Turkish
aircraft.
Earlier, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance is
discussing the possibility of leaving SAM Patriot in Turkey for 2016,
but the decision is still pending.
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