NATO Resists Getting Drawn into Syrian Rebel Arms Debate
NATO head Anders Fogh Rasmussen insisted Monday that the military alliance had no intention of getting dragged into an EU debate about whether or not to supply arms to the Syrian rebels.
"This issue is a European Union question ... I have no intention whatsoever to interfere with this discussion within the EU," Rasmussen told a press conference.
EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton urged caution Saturday over a proposal by Britain and France to arm the rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad.
"We have to work through, very carefully, the best understanding we can have of what would be the implications," Ashton said, the day after the EU wrapped up a summit without reaching agreement on easing an arms embargo to allow direct weapons shipments to the rebels.
Britain and France -- prominent NATO powers -- have pressed for the EU's across-the-board arms embargo so as to arm the Syrian rebels and so tip the balance in their favor in the two-year-old uprising against Assad.
EU leaders agreed Friday in Brussels to put off further discussions on the embargo until a meeting of the bloc's foreign ministers in Dublin next week.
Several member states have expressed strong opposition to easing the embargo, saying a flood of weapons into Syria would only escalate the bloodshed.
Rasmussen stressed that NATO's mission was clear -- "to ensure effective defense and protection of NATO Allies, in this case of the Turkish population and Turkish territory".
Earlier this year, NATO agreed the deployment of Patriot anti-missile systems along Turkey's southern border with Syria after several shelling incidents.
This deployment has helped ease tensions along the border region, he added.
Source: Agence France Presse
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