Turkey is likely to formally request NATO assistance to help boost defences on its border with war-torn Syria, according to several news sources.
Speaking from a meeting of EU defence ministers in Brussels on Monday, German Defence Minister Thomas de Maizière said he expected Turkey would make a formal request for help from NATO. If German troops take part in a reported Turkish air defence system it would represent the unit's first foreign deployment. Originally intended to protect against a Soviet threat, the group is based in northern Germany.
"I expect there to be a request today from the Turkish government," the German Defence Minister said. "This is about a precautionary and defensive measure on NATO territory only". De Maizière also said that if a request was made for the missiles to be moved to Turkey, they would be accompanied by German soldiers.
Turkey is expected to request that NATO send Patriot missile units to the 910-km border. Among NATO members, only Germany, the Netherlands and the United States have Patriot missiles.
The Netherlands has not received a formal request to send Patriot missiles to NATO ally Turkey to help defend the country's border with Syria, the Dutch Defence Minister said on Monday. "We did not receive a formal request yet," Defence Minister Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert told reporters in Brussels. "We are waiting for a formal request".
Leon Panetta, the US Defence Secretary, also said last week that Washington would support Turkey's expected request. "They have asked that we work with them to try to see what we can do to give them some missile defence capability," Mr Panetta told the Voice of America. "We are working with them. Our hope is that we can help provide that kind of assistance," he said.
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Monday that even without Turkey's formal request, the organization is treating the situation as "a matter of urgency". "Turkey can count on allied solidarity," he said, while echoing de Maizière's caution that such a move would be defensive in nature. "We are not speaking about a no-fly zone. If we are to deploy Patriot missiles it would be a purely defensive measure to defend and protect Turkey".
The deployment of Patriot missile batteries would mark NATO's first direct involvement in the Syrian crisis, in which more than 35,000 people have been killed since protests against the rule of Bashar Al Assad began in March 2011.