Anyone remember the Blank Check...
The last time anyone issued a blank check the Austrian Empire decided to pick a fight with Serbia...and we all know what happened next. Has Jens Stoltenberg just given the Turks the green light to expand the conflict further? What with them provoking the Syrians a few years ago with some Phantoms and with the shady goings on currently I, for one, am left slightly bemused. Aside from my questioning Turkey's membership in NATO after the Cold War I am not sure assisting one vile Islamic regime against another bunch of Islamic nut-jobs inside a third party's state territory (which is, legally speaking, still the sovereign government...anyone remember the old non-intervention clause of the UN?) is going to benefit anyone or keep the problem localised (shouldn't we be helping the actually victims; Syria and Iraq?). I for one am awaiting a Turkish Gleiwitz ...
Press conference by incoming NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg
Our responsibility is ... the basic responsibility is to stand up and be very clear to everyone to protect Turkey - that collective defence, that Article 5 is something which is also going to be applied if Turkey is in any way attacked. That's the reason why we have the Patriot systems deployed in Turkey. And that's the reason why I will underline that when I visit Turkey in the near future. And we plan to continue to have a military presence in Turkey with the Patriot missile systems.
When it comes to the decision in the Turkish Parliament that's not related to a NATO operation; but that's a national Turkish decision. And I think I will leave that to the Parliament of Turkey to decide.
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