Turkey
NATO butts in on Turkey-Russia rapprochement M. K. Bhadrakumar Oct. 26, 2016 The Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Jens Stoltenberg in his ‘doorstep statement’ today on the 2-day meeting of the alliance’s defence ministers in Brussels said, inter alia, that an agenda item concerns “making progress on plans” for more NATO presence in the Black Sea region. He cited Russia’s belligerence as the rationale for such move. Interestingly, there was much emphasis on the Russian operations in Syria in Stoltenberg’s media briefing. (Transcript) Prima facie, Syria is not ‘NATO territory’, but a linkage is being established between NATO posturing toward Russia and the latter’s military presence in Syria. This can only happen at the behest of the United States, because Stoltenberg wouldn’t even sneeze sans green signal from Washington. Of course, generally speaking, boosting the ‘enemy’ image of Russia is useful and necessary for Washington to keep the alliance going, since the member countries are otherwise loathe to increase their defence budgets to 2% of GDP. The US also calibrates the NATO posturing toward Russia to curb any proximity developing between individual European countries and Moscow at the bilateral level as well as to ensure that the sanctions against Russia will remain in place. However, the plan to discuss Black Sea deployment as well as Stoltenberg’s emphasis on Aleppo also appears to serve another US...
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