NATO Backs Turkey as Tension With Russia Grows Over Assad

Source: Bloomberg

NATO is ready to step up support for Turkey, the alliance’s second-largest military, and warned Russia against escalating its campaign in neighboring Syria as tension between the governments in Moscow and Ankara increased.

Violations of Turkish airspace aren’t acceptable and Russia’s actions carry the “risk of miscalculations,” Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday as the group’s defense ministers gathered in Brussels. “We are in constant dialog and assessing the situation with Turkey, but the main thing is we have a duty to reinforce,” he said.

The main targets of Russia’s air and cruise-missile strikes aren’t the Islamic State terrorist group, but members of more moderate forces opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Stoltenberg said. He called on the Kremlin to fight Islamic State militants and stop shoring up Assad, who is also backed by Shiite-dominated Iran in the fight against predominantly Sunni groups.

Four Russian cruise missiles intended to land in Syria fell short and crashed in rural Iran, a U.S. defense official said Thursday. The official, who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive military information, said the U.S. wasn’t certain what damage was caused by the missiles fired from vessels in the Caspian Sea. The Russian news service RIA said Russia’s defense ministry denied an earlier CNN report that missiles had crashed in Iran, which is allied with Russia in backing Assad.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-08/erdogan-says-russian-military-build-up-in-syria-is-unacceptable?module=TopNews&position=3_headline