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NATO warns Turkey against buying Chinese, Russian air defense systems ÜMİT ENGİNSOY ANKARA- Hürriyet Daily News Monday, July 25, 2011 NATO may avoid sharing ballistic missiles intelligence with Turkey if the nation decides to buy Chinese or Russian systems for its missile defense program Ankara would have to operate without NATO’s intelligence information on incoming ballistic missiles if it chooses to buy Chinese or Russian systems for its national air and missile defense program, officials of the Western alliance have warned Turkey. Participating in the ongoing competition to win Turkey’s national air and missile contract are the U.S. partnership between...

While U.S. weapons development stalled almost completely during the 1990s - both Russia and China have continued to field a new generation of missiles for which the west has no equal nor defense. A popular new weapon is the Russian long range air-to-air Vympel R-77 missile, NATO code named AA-12 Adder. The R-77 is designed to destroy other aircraft beyond visual range and reported to be equal to or better than the U.S. made AIM-120 AMRAAM missile...

Moscow plans main hubs in Turkey and Israel for Russian and Azerbaijani oil and gas exports to southern Europe and China November 18, 2005, 1:55 PM (GMT+02:00) Russian president Vladimir Putin discussed the plan with Turkish prime minister Tayyep Erdogan and Silvio Berlusconi of Italy at the inauguration Thursday of the Blue Stream pipeline network laid on the Black Sea bed by the Russian Gazprom and Italian Eni oil giants. Putin spoke of extending this pipe network to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. A new underwater branch would then be built to connect Ceyhan with Israel’s Ashkelon oil port,...

ISLAMABAD, July 9: Pakistan has decided to enter into joint ventures with China, Ukraine and Turkey to further increase its quality defence production. Informed sources told Dawn here on Saturday that Pakistan had reached an initial understanding with the three countries to start joint production of different kinds of weapons. Pakistan was looking for credible defence partners not only to further strengthen its military capabilities but also to boost its exports. Currently, the sources said, Pakistan was exporting quality arms and ammunitions to around 50 countries, including the developed countries like the United States, Germany and New Zealand. In this...

( KWIC Dec.17 Toronto ) The source from the Turkish state-owned Roketsan Co. has recently indicated to the public that fifty experts of rocket technology were sent to Roketsan Co. by China National Precision Machinery Import and Export Corporation in November. They initially plan to stay there for at least half a year to help Turkey develop the WS1 rocket weapon system and to transfer the Chinese manufacturing technology to Turkey. According to the Headquarters of the General Staff of the Turkish army, Turkey has decided to establish a special military unit on the border and along the coast of...

U.S. drivers can look forward to $2 gas later this year, thanks in part to the Iran nuclear deal announced Tuesday. Gas may only dip a few cents when the Iranian oil first starts to flow again, but by September drivers could see big savings. "Once we get past Labor Day, we should see gas falling by 10 to 15 cents a month," said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst with the Oil Price Information Service. "By December a lot of places are going to see gasoline at $2 or less." Iran hasn't been able to sell oil to the United...

American Decline: Chinese forces head to Syria to join with Russia in filling Obama's power vacuum and purportedly fight the Islamic State. A false move involving NATO member Turkey could mean world war. Russian and Chinese military sources now confirm that Chinese warships are en route to the Middle East to get in on some of the action of humiliating the U.S. In just a week and a half, Moscow has upended the dynamics of power in the Mideast by taking on the role that President Obama relinquished: acting like a superpower in a regional conflict that has implications extending...

Watching the events cascading in Syria makes it eerily easy to see how the political elites of 1914 stumbled into World War I while believing they were pursuing a sensible set of national interests. The parallels are far from precise. The alliances bonding the players in today’s Middle East aren’t as interlocking as those in early 20th-century Europe. The war-mobilizing machinery isn’t as rigid. And, of course, today’s leaders have the precautionary example of World War I to rivet their attention: They know the pitfalls of escalation and the tragic consequences of unbounded warfare—though people don’t always heed the lessons...

<p>NATO said it was prepared to send troops to Turkey to defend its ally after violations of Turkish airspace by Russian jets bombing Syria and Britain scolded Moscow for escalating a civil war that has already killed 250,000 people.</p> <p>Officials at the U.S.-led alliance are still smarting from Russia's weekend incursions into Turkey's airspace near northern Syria and NATO defense ministers are meeting in Brussels with the agenda likely to be dominated by the Syria crisis.</p>

Europe must live up to the challenge of an upheaval that has forced hundreds of thousands of refugees to flee Syria, where everyone including Iran, Russia and the West must seek a political solution, French President Francois Hollande said on Wednesday. Speaking alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France, Hollande said the risk of failure was "total war" and that Europe, if slow to grasp the scale of the refugee exodus, had now made a start. As for Syria, Hollande reiterated the Paris line that any solution for Syria had to be based on...

The country has seen periods of turmoil before. But this time may be different. I am usually an optimist when it comes to Turkey’s future. Indeed, I wrote a whole book about The Rise of Turkey. But these days, I’m worried. The country faces a toxic combination of political polarization, government instability, economic slowdown, and threats of violence—from both inside and outside Turkey—that could soon add up to a catastrophe. The likelihood of that outcome is increasing amid Russia’s bombing raids in Syria in support of its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which threaten to debilitate the moderate rebels and...

The United States and its NATO allies denounced Russia on Monday for violating Turkish air space along the frontier with Syria, and Ankara threatened to respond if provoked again, raising the prospect of direct confrontation between the Cold War enemies. NATO held an emergency meeting of ambassadors of its 28 member states to respond to what Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called "unacceptable violations of Turkish air space" after Turkey said a Russian jet had crossed its frontier. NATO members "strongly protest" and "condemn" incursions into Turkish and NATO territory, the alliance said. "Allies also note the extreme danger of such irresponsible...

Dozens of Islamist Saudi Arabian clerics have called on Arab and Muslim countries to "give all moral, material, political and military" support to what they term a jihad, or holy war, against Syria's government and its Iranian and Russian backers. Although the clerics who signed the online statement are not affiliated with the government, their strong sectarian and anti-Christian language reflects mounting anger among many Saudis over Russian and Iranian involvement in Syria's civil war. Russia last week started airstrikes against Syrian opposition targets that it describes as aimed at weakening the jihadist Islamic State group, a move Riyadh has...

Turkey opposes Russia's military intervention in Syria. Turkey scrambles fighter jets to intercept Russian warplanes that Ankara says violated its airspace. The Russians were allegedly making their way to Syria to carry out bombings to support Syria's Assad regime. Turkey opposes Russia's intervention in wartorn Syria and officials have warned that any further violations may be responded to more harshly.

Russian fighter jets launched from a new airbase in Syria have persuaded western critics to mute their demands for the removal of President Bashar al-Assad, but another group of his opponents sees Moscow’s intervention as more provocative than decisive. Regional powers have quietly, but effectively, channelled funds, weapons and other support to rebel groups making the biggest inroads against the forces from Damascus. In doing so, they are investing heavily in a conflict which they see as part of a wider regional struggle for influence with bitter rival Iran. In a week when Russia made dozens of bombing raids, those...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - International monitors say they have spotted a new kind of Russian weapons system in rebel-held Ukraine this week, possible evidence of Moscow's continued interest in Ukraine even as it focuses on Syria. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which is monitoring a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, reported that its monitors had seen a mobile TOS-1 'Buratino' weapons system for the first time. The Buratino is equipped with thermobaric warheads which spread a flammable liquid around a target and then ignite it. It can destroy several city blocks in one strike and cause indiscriminate damage. Only...

BEIRUT/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia bombed Syria for a third day on Friday, mainly hitting areas held by rival insurgent groups rather than the Islamic State fighters it said it was targeting and drawing an increasingly angry response from the West. The U.S.-led coalition that is waging its own air war against Islamic State called on the Russians to halt strikes on targets other than Islamic State. "We call on the Russian Federation to immediately cease its attacks on the Syrian opposition and civilians and to focus its efforts on fighting ISIL," said the coalition, which includes the United States, major...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flies to New York ahead of U.N. address on Thursday • "Each time that I address the U.N. I feel the privilege and great honor of telling the truth before the world on behalf of the citizens of Israel," Netanyahu says. During his address to the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will make the case against the nuclear deal world powers reached with Iran in July and sound the alarm on Islamic extremism, both in Israel and beyond. Netanyahu, who spoke with reporters at Ben-Gurion International Airport on Tuesday shortly before departing...

Demonstrating a new level of tension with Israel, President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority declared Wednesday that it was no longer bound by the Oslo Peace Accords and subsequent agreements that formed the basis for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In his annual General Assembly speech, Mr. Abbas accused Israel of having violated these pacts, which date back two decades and outline security, economic and other arrangements in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel during and after the 1967 war. He asserted that there was no reason that the Palestinians should remain faithful to them as long...

Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas has announced that the PA is no longer committed to the 1994 Oslo Accords. In his UN General Assembly address Wednesday evening, Abbas wasted no time attacking Israel from the podium in New York. He began by repeating calls for a “two-state solution,” and condemning Israeli “settlements” in Judea and Samaria, as well as the blockade of Gaza. …