On Thursday
the Italian Chief of Defence, General Claudio Graziano, arrived in Turkey for a
two-day visit to meet Italian military personnel deployed to the town of Kahramanmaras
in the south supporting NATO’s augmentation of Turkey’ Air Defence.
Italy
responded to an Alliance request and deployed a surface-to-air missile battery and
approximately 130 personnel in order to defend the population and territory of
Turkey against threats posed by missiles from across its border with Syria.
The Italian
weapon systems arrived in Turkey in early June and deployed to a facility near
Kahramanmaras, some 90 km north of the border to Syria.
Over the last
weeks, Italy and Turkey have been cooperating bedding down the unit. Activities
are now ongoing to integrate the unit into NATO’s command and control system
executed out of NATO’s Headquarters Allied Air Command (AIRCOM) at Ramstein,
Germany. Transfer of command authority to NATO with Operational Command for
AIRCOM will occur at the end of the month.
Background: In
response to Turkey’s request, NATO Foreign Ministers decided on 4 December 2012
that NATO would augment Turkey’s air defence capabilities in order to defend
the population and territory of Turkey against threats posed by missiles from
across its border with Syria.
Since January
2013, five Allies have contributed missile batteries to augment Turkey’s air
defence: Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States have completed their
deployments. Currently, Spain provides one Patriot missile battery and Italy is
the fifth Ally with one ASTER SAMP/T battery. All units operated and/or will
operate under NATO command, plugged into NATO’s air defence system. Until the end of 2015, two German PATRIOT batteries had been deployed at the facilities at Kahramanmaras.
NATO’s Supreme
Allied Commander, General Scaparrotti, has operational command responsibility
for the missiles deployment. He has delegated responsibility to Allied Air
Command, Ramstein, which is in charge of NATO’s air defence, and to NATO
military commanders on the ground.