Israel Matzav

Great news: NATO reassuring Iran

In an exclusive interview with Today's Zaman in Brussels last week, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen added his voice to the growing regional controversy over the nascent missile defense system, telling Iranians that they have no reason to be worried unless they are planning to attack a NATO territory and making clear that deterioration in Turkey's ties with NATO's regional partner, Israel -- no matter how undesirable -- will have no effect on Ankara's place within the 28-member alliance.

“I have followed these statements,” Rasmussen said at his office when asked about the Iranian threats against Turkey. “They are completely unfounded, because NATO's missile defense system is a defensive system. It is not directed against any specific state; it is directed against a threat, a missile threat,” he added, adding that there are now more than 30 countries in the world that either have missile capabilities or are in the process of acquiring them. “Some of them have a range that can hit a NATO territory. This is the reason we have decided to establish the NATO system: to defend, not to attack,” he said.

“So, actually, to speak quite bluntly about it, you can only consider our missile defense system a threat if you have an intention or an idea that you want to attack a NATO territory. If you don't have that intention, then our system is really, purely a defensive system with an aim to protect our populations against any missile threat, wherever it might come from,” said the chief NATO official.

Labels: Iranian nuclear threat, NATO, Turkish obsession with Israel

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:49 PM