MOSCOW - Russia opposes the possible deployment by NATO of Patriot missiles nearTurkey's border with Syria, the foreign ministry said on Thursday.
“This would not foster stability in the region,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said of Turkey’s request for deployment to the Western military alliance.
NATO ambassadors met on Wednesday to consider the request, which followed weeks of talks between Turkeyand NATO allies about how to shore up security on its 900-km (560-mile) border to avoid a spillover from the Syrian civil war.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said in Paris on Thursday that France backed Turkey’s request.
“There is no reason to object, it is purely defensive,” he told BFM TV.
Turkey has repeatedly scrambled fighter jets along the frontier and responded in kind to stray shells flying into its territory during the conflict in Syria, where an estimated 38,000 people have been killed an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s government began in March 2011.
