By Tuvan Gumrukcu
ANKARA, March 10 (Reuters) – Turkey said on Tuesday that a U.S. Patriot air defence system was deployed to its southeast, near a NATO radar base, as part of steps by the alliance to boost air defences in the face of missile threats from the Iran war.
It is being deployed to Malatya province, the location of the Kurecik NATO radar base, which provides vital data for the alliance and helped identify two Iranian ballistic missiles heading toward Turkey over the last week.
Iran has said it is not at war with regional countries and denies explicitly targeting its neighbour Turkey. Ankara has warned Tehran against firing any more missiles towards it and the two countries’ presidents discussed the issue on Monday.
“In addition to the measures we take on a national level, air and missile defence measures by NATO have been increased. In that framework, one Patriot System is being deployed to Malatya to contribute to defending our air space,” the defence ministry said.
It added that Turkey would continue to evaluate regional developments and cooperate with NATO allies.
The deployment comes amid reports that Washington is looking into redeploying its military assets, including Patriot systems, currently stationed in South Korea.
It was not immediately clear where the Patriot system or its batteries were being redeployed from.
Turkey, an emerging leader in the global defence industry that has the alliance’s second-largest army, lacks its own fully fledged air defences despite development efforts, and has relied on NATO air defences stationed in the eastern Mediterranean Sea in both missile incidents in the last week.
There is currently one Patriot system, from Spain, deployed in Turkey as part of NATO defences.
(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Ece Toksabay and Jonathan Spicer)
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