NATO Measures Assuring Turkey’s Security Raise Questions

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — On Tuesday, the foreign ministers of the NATO member states agreed at a meeting in Brussels to continue developing measures to "assure Turkey’s security." According to media reports, these measures include boosting NATO air group in Incirlik air base in Turkey, deploying additional missile defense batteries in the country and sending additional warships to the NATO fleet in the eastern Mediterranean.

"If this is related to the task of Turkey's protection, [a question] emerges — against whom NATO is going to protect Turkey? We have to be vigilant there, to be very careful. We have to explore what character this enhancement has and why it is undertaken," Grushko told Rossiya-24 TV channel.

He added that "it is quite clear that Turkey is not in the firing line, there are no classic risks and threats to the Turkish security."

Tensions mounted between Russia and Turkey after a Turkish F-16 fighter jet shot down a Russian Su-24 bomber over Syrian territory on November 24. Ankara claimed that it downed the jet because it had violated Turkish airspace. Both the Russian General Staff and the Syrian Air Defense Command confirmed that the Russian jet never crossed into Turkish airspace.