NATO wary of Syria intervention, but ready to defend Turkey

“I can assure you we have all necessary plans in place to defend and protect Turkey, our ally,” Rasmussen told a group of journalists in Brussels ahead of a meeting of defense ministers from NATO states, which begins on Tuesday.

Rasmussen said the tension on the Turkish-Syrian border is not on the formal agenda of the ministerial meeting but did not exclude an unscheduled debate given that some ministers might want to discuss the situation in an informal manner.  

He also commended the Turkish government for “showing restraint in response to the acts of the Syrian army” and said he hoped the situation will not escalate. “But this is of course also a responsibility for the Syrian government to take all steps necessary to prevent such escalation,” he said.

Rasmussen said questions on invoking Article 5, the collective defense clause, is “hypothetical” at this stage because Turkey, which has requested a NATO debate on the crisis under Article 4, has not asked the alliance to come to its defense under Article 5.

“Such decisions will be taken on a case-by-case basis. It is also very rare that NATO invokes Article 5, we have done it only once in our history,” he said, a reference to NATO involvement in Afghanistan following the Sept. 11 attacks on the US.

“It is quite clear in stating that if one ally is attacked, we consider it an attack on all allies and we stand ready to help each [ally that came under attack]. But of course at this stage it is a bit hypothetical to ask this question,” said Rasmussen.

But the NATO chief, who has dismissed categorically any NATO role in Syria in the past, said the only way forward to resolve the crisis in Syria is a political solution, noting that former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's six-point plan for a political transition still provides “the building blocks” for a solution.

Noting that Syria is a complex society ethnically, politically and religiously, Rasmussen insisted that a NATO role similar to the one in Libya is not a viable option for Syria. “A military intervention can have unpredicted repercussions,” he said. “Let me be very clear. We have no intention to interfere militarily,” he said.