{"id":25299,"date":"2010-11-11T09:03:26","date_gmt":"2010-11-11T07:03:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=25299"},"modified":"2023-04-06T08:29:21","modified_gmt":"2023-04-06T05:29:21","slug":"turkey-against-nato-missile-shield-targeting-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2010\/11\/11\/turkey-against-nato-missile-shield-targeting-iran\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey against Nato missile shield targeting Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mentioning one country, Iran… is wrong and will not happen. A particular country will not be targeted…We will definitely not accept that,\u201d he said in an interview with the BBC\u2019s Turkish service, aired on Turkish television. \u2013 Reuters Photo<\/p>\n

\"Turkey's
Turkey's President Abdullah Gul makes a speech during the opening of the Global Economic Symposium, co-organised by Turkish Central Bank and Germany's Kiel Institute, in Istanbul<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

ANKARA: A Nato missile shield project that singles out Iran as a threat will be unacceptable to Turkey, President Abdullah Gul said in an interview broadcast Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cNato is a defence organisation. A defence system is being developed against anyone in the world who has ballistic missiles and does not belong to Nato,\u201d Gul said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMentioning one country, Iran\u2026 is wrong and will not happen. A particular country will not be targeted\u2026We will definitely not accept that,\u201d he said in an interview with the BBC\u2019s Turkish service, aired on Turkish television.<\/p>\n

Nato and the United States want to set up a missile shield to protect Europe against what they perceive is a growing threat of short- and medium-range missiles possibly launched from the Middle East, especially from Iran.<\/p>\n

The issue will be high on the agenda of a Nato summit in Lisbon next week, which will also be attended by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev whose country is suspicious of the project despite assurances that it is not aimed at Russia.<\/p>\n

Turkey, Nato\u2019s sole Muslim-majority member, is worried that the project may deal a blow to ties with its eastern neighbour Iran and Russia, which have notably improved in recent years.<\/p>\n

According to diplomats, Turkey also wants the missile shield to protect all of its territory, and not just areas near the Iranian border.<\/p>\n

The Islamist-rooted government in Ankara has taken a softer line on Tehran\u2019s nuclear programme than Western powers, insisting on a diplomatic solution under a nuclear fuel swap deal that it hammered out with the Islamic republic in May, together with Brazil.<\/p>\n

In a move that irked the United States, Turkey voted \u201cno\u201d to fresh sanctions against Iran, adopted by the UN Security Council in June, arguing that the swap deal should be given a chance.<\/p>\n

The country\u2019s close ties with Iran, coupled by a deep crisis in relations with one-time ally Israel, have sparked concern that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan\u2019s government is taking Turkey away from the West. \u2014 AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mentioning one country, Iran… is wrong and will not happen. A particular country will not be targeted…We will definitely not accept that,\u201d he said in an interview with the BBC\u2019s Turkish service, aired on Turkish television. \u2013 Reuters Photo ANKARA: A Nato missile shield project that singles out Iran as a threat will be unacceptable […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":25306,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[3984],"class_list":["post-25299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-iran_","tag-nato-missile-shield"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}