ISTANBUL — Russia said on Thursday that it opposes deployment of NATO Patriot missiles on Turkey’s border with Syria, a sign of deepening tensions across the region over the 20-month-old Syrian crisis.

“This would not foster stability in the region,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said of Turkey’s request for deployment to the Western military alliance.

NATO ambassadors met on Wednesday to consider Turkey’s request, which followed weeks of talks between Ankara and NATO allies about how to shore up security on its 900-kilometer border to avoid a spillover from the Syrian civil war.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said in Paris on Thursday that France backed Turkey’s request. “There is no reason to object, it is purely defensive,” he told BFM TV.

Turkey has repeatedly scrambled fighter jets along the frontier and responded in kind to stray shells flying into its territory during the conflict in Syria, where an estimated 38,000 people have been killed since an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s government began in March of 2011.

“The militarization of the Syrian-Turkish border is an alarming signal,” Lukashevich was quoted by Reuters as telling a weekly briefing. “Our advice to our Turkish colleagues consists of something else entirely: To use its potential influence on the Syrian opposition to seek the start of an inter-Syrian dialogue … as swiftly as possible, and not to flex muscles and move the situation in such a dangerous direction,” he said.

Russia has vetoed three UN Security Council resolutions aimed at putting pressure on Assad and accuses the West of encouraging militants fighting his government. It denies trying to prop up Assad, whose nation has been an avid buyer of its weapons and hosts a naval supply facility that is Moscow’s only military base outside the ex-Soviet Union.

Moscow says the crisis in Syria must be resolved without foreign interference, particularly military intervention, and that Assad’s exit from power should not be imposed as a precondition for a political solution.

NATO was Moscow’s Cold War opponent and Russia has repeatedly expressed concern about deployments relatively close to its borders by the Western alliance, which has expanded to include several former Soviet satellites and republics.

Location of Patriot missiles to be jointly set by NATO, Turkey

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said the Turkish army will, together with NATO, choose the location of Patriot missiles, adding that the anti-missile system is “completely for defense purposes” against foreign threats.

In a statement on Wednesday, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said NATO countries that have Patriots, namely Germany, the Netherlands and the United States, will decide if they will offer their missiles for deployment in Turkey and for how long. A joint team will visit Turkey next week to conduct a site-survey for the possible deployment of the Patriots, Rasmussen also said.

“Such a deployment would augment Turkey’s air defense capabilities to defend the population and territory of Turkey,” Rasmussen said in a statement. “It would contribute to the de-escalation of the crisis along NATO’s southeastern border. And it would be a concrete demonstration of alliance solidarity and resolve.”

NATO military personnel are also expected to be deployed in Turkey along with the Patriots. Erdoğan said the deployment procedure does not require approval of Parliament since it is a NATO decision.

As controversy over foreign troop deployment continued, Hüseyin Çelik, a deputy chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), said the decision to fire the missiles will be up to the Turkish military.

After Rasmussen’s statement regarding the deployment of Patriot missiles along the Turkish border with Syria, the issue was again brought to the discussion table in the EU member countries.

The first sign of approval came from Germany, when the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the country’s main opposition party, stated in the Mitteldeutschen Zeitung that Germany should respond positively. “If our ally wants help, we need to answer in an affirmative way. If we do not give a positive answer, it would be a relentless signal,” said Hans-Peter Bartels, a German politician from the SPD.

After Ankara’s official request, the Dutch government also stated that the Netherlands has taken the issue into consideration, saying alliance solidarity is an important criterion for assessing the request.

On Friday a further warning came from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. 

“I understand that no one has any intention to see NATO get sucked into the Syrian crisis,” Lavrov told reporters, reiterating concerns aired by the foreign ministry on Thursday.

But “the more arms are being accumulated, the greater the risk that they will be used,” he added.

“Any accumulation of arms creates risks and probably tempts those who would like to more actively resort to the use of force from outside into using them.”

“Any accumulation of weapons creates a risk that any provocation may trigger a serious armed conflict. We would like to avoid it at all costs,” Lavrov noted.

Rasmussen said earlier this week that NATO would consider the request for Patriots “without delay.” The approval is expected in coming days, diplomatic sources have said.

Lavrov said he was scheduled to speak with Rasmussen who wanted to explain the alliance’s stance on the missiles to Moscow, by phone later Friday.  

— RT