BRUSSELS, December 8 (Itar-Tass) — It is inadmissible for Russia NATO’s missile defence to cover the part of its territory, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after a session of the Russia-NATO Council on Thursday.
At the same time, Lavrov said that a new radar, which would be deployed in Turkey within missile defence, would control the most part of the Russian territory.
“If this radar was necessary to monitor the south and an area to the south of the territory of NATO members, such radar exists – it functions and watches the area from where the threat comes from, according to American and NATO colleagues,” the minister noted.
He stressed, “When a radar is deployed in Turkey, it will double the existing radar and watch the considerable part of the Russian territory.”
Turkey and the United States signed a memorandum on the deployment of a radar in Turkey within missile defence in September. The radar will be deployed in Kurecik, south-east of Turkey. Kurecik in Malatya province lies 435 miles west of the Iranian border.
In September, Pentagon spokesman Colonel Dave Lapan said the U.S. hoped to have the radar deployed there by the end of the year.
NATO members agreed to an anti-missile system over Europe to protect against Iranian ballistic missiles at a summit in Lisbon, Portugal, last year. A compromise not to pinpoint Iran was reached with Turkey, which had threatened to block the deal if its neighbour was named as a threat.
Under the NATO plans, a limited system of US anti-missile interceptors and radars already planned for Europe – to include interceptors in Romania and Poland as well as the radar in Turkey – would be linked to expanded European-owned missile defences. That would create a broad system that protected every NATO country against medium-range missile attack.