NATO to Deploy Air Support to Turkey in a 'Face-Saving' Exercise

NATO is set to deploy air defense support to member-state Turkey in an effort to prevent a repetition of the shooting down of a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 fighter aircraft in November, creating diplomatic tension between Ankara and Moscow.

Although the deployment of interceptor aircraft, AWACS early warning radar planes and a naval unit carrying anti-aircraft missiles comes less than a month after the shoot-down, a NATO spokesman said it had been in planning for ten months.......[http://sptnkne.ws/ar7C]

....NATO's deployment of air control and defense resources to Turkey is seen by some as a face-saving move to gently restrain Ankara, which some believe as having been 'trigger happy' in shooting down th Su-24.

• "NATO rules of engagement are more cautious than those of Turkey," one NATO source told reporters.

"It's a face-saving show of allied support for Turkey, while trying to get them to behave more intelligently," Nick Witney, a former head of the European Defense Agency now at the European Council on Foreign Relations told Euractiv.com.
[http://sptnkne.ws/ar7C]
 17/12/15