German-Turkish
refugee request ambushes NATO talks
Merkel
and Davutoğlu catch NATO on the back foot by asking for help on
Syrian refugees.
By FLORIAN EDER AND
HANS VON DER BURCHARD 2/9/16, 7:55 PM CET
Military alliances
don’t like surprises, which is why NATO was taken aback by an
apparently impromptu German and Turkish proposal that it should take
on a new role in the refugee crisis, such as sea patrols against
human traffickers in the Aegean.
The initiative —
fruit of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to Prime Minister Ahmet
Davutoğlu in Ankara on Monday — promises to overshadow a meeting
of NATO defense ministers on Wednesday and Thursday, which had been
scheduled to focus on Eastern Europe, the Russian threat, Georgia and
defense spending. Syria was only meant to be discussed over dinner.
“Turkey and
Germany will together recommend to NATO … becoming involved
concerning the consequences of the flow of refugees from Syria,”
Davutoğlu told a joint news conference with Merkel. “In
particular, we will make a joint effort on the effective use of
NATO’s observation and monitoring mechanisms on the border and in
the Aegean.”
“It
isn’t really NATO’s job” — NATO official.
Merkel committed
defense ministers to discuss whether and how NATO “could be helpful
with monitoring the situation” in the Aegean, “with support for
the tasks of Frontex and the Turkish coast guard.” Germany and
Turkey are both NATO members.
“We wonder what
the outline is, and why NATO?” asked one official at its
headquarters in Brussels. “It isn’t really NATO’s job.”
“NATO doesn’t
have any legal mandate nor framework to manage this type of
situation,” said another source at NATO, where the feeling was that
the request was so far vague and unprepared.
The public response
was polite, but cautious.
Jens Stoltenberg,
NATO secretary general, learned about the new initiative in two phone
calls from the German and Turkish defense ministers. He told
reporters Tuesday that no decision had been taken.
“I expect that the
Turkish minister will provide us with more details when we meet
tomorrow and that the ministers will address this issue,” he said.
“I think we will take very seriously a request from Turkey and all
our allies to look what NATO can do to cope and deal with the crisis
and all the challenges they face, or at least in Turkey.”
The U.S. ambassador
to NATO, Douglas Lute, didn’t rule out some sort of help for the
crisis affecting Europe, though he also made it clear that responding
to the refugee crisis is primarily the EU’s job, rather than
Washington or NATO’s.
Well over a million
refugees arrived on Europe’s doorsteps last year, many of them
fleeing the war in Syria, where NATO members such as the U.S., France
and Britain — but not the alliance itself — are carrying out air
strikes against ISIL.
Wait and see
Turkey is home to an
estimated 2.5 million Syrian refugees and has been promised €3
billion of EU aid to help look after them, in exchange for help
controlling the flow of migrants into Europe via land borders with
Greece and across the Aegean Sea.
“If there’s a
request that’s made by a German and/or Turkish minister in the next
couple of days, we have to assess what exactly the request is …
NATO has a lot of capabilities it might bring to bear on this:
Everything from intelligence sharing, information sharing … [and]
hypothetically maritime or air capabilities,” said Lute. “We have
to wait and see what the request is.”
“The primary
responsibility does not fall to NATO but to the European Union, which
itself accepts that it has the primary responsibility to back up its
member states in these sorts of crisis. So border control, migration
and so forth,” he said.
“This is
fundamentally an issue that should be addressed a couple of miles
from here at EU headquarters. But that doesn’t mean that NATO can’t
assist. So we just have to wait and see … what the form of such a
request might be,” he told reporters.
Last year, in
response to Ankara’s worries about Russian air raids on Syria
causing incursions on its airspace, NATO agreed an air defense
package including support from AWACS surveillance planes and ships in
the Eastern Mediterranean. Stoltenberg said defense ministers would
discuss “how we can follow up” on this.
The U.S. has also
put in a request for NATO AWACS planes to help support the campaign
against ISIL. Stoltenberg said NATO was “actively considering”
this request, which would “increase the coalition’s ability to
conduct airstrikes against ISIL.”
The ministerial
meeting comes as Russian assaults around Aleppo in northern Syria
have pushed tens of thousands of refugees to the border with Turkey,
creating new urgency in the search for a political solution to the
civil war in Syria.
“The intense
Russian air strikes, mainly against opposition forces, are
undermining these efforts,” said Stoltenberg, accusing Russia of
“raising tensions in the region” and violating the airspace of
NATO member Turkey.
Lute, the U.S.
ambassador, equated Russian fighter jets’ incursions into Turkish
airspace with its military takeover of Crimea and its support for
pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine.
“What we see here
is a pattern of disregard for the most fundamental international
norm, which is territorial sovereignty and the respect of borders,”
said Lute.
Maïa de la Baume
contributed to this article.
Authors:
Florian Eder and
Hans von der Burchard
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