While US soldiers enter Turkey to prepare for the operation of the Patriot Missile Defense System, some in Turkey, purportedly benefiting from protection provided by the System, say that the defense layer is unnecessary, believing the presence of foreign forces to lead Turkey into a war with the neighbor country.
Ali Yilmaz, 49, is a Turkish citizen who works at a mobile phone shop. “We don’t need this shield between us and our neighbors. This is wrong and will make more trouble,” he says.
People in Turkey expect the missile defense system to defend them against bullets and missiles that sometimes stray away from the border or are shot directly at them. But they ask as well why this level of support is not directed to those who live inside Syria.
So far 400 US soldiers from Oklahoma have entered the Incirlik Military Base in southern Turkey.
The first round of US soldiers and convoy arrived in Turkey last Friday and more are to arrive in the coming days.
The sound of impending war has become part of Turks’ daily life, living in the vicinity of the Turkey-Syria border. People of Hacipasa village with a population of 3,000 near Turkey-Syria border hear the sounds of fighters and battery from the other side of the border in Syrian soil every day.
In Antakya, placed further away from the border, extensive criticism prevails over the installation of the Patriot Missile Defense system. The city has so far witnessed a number of pro-Syrian government protests. Many of the city population have said that they demanded peace and stability, and not revolution in Syria.
Some express concerns that the deployment of foreign soldiers at the Syrian border is a step toward a more expansive war, asking why the Turkish Army needs help.
Jemil Yüce, 60 and Antakya citizen says that “they claim the missile defense system to serve defensive purposes, but I don’t see the need. I don’t think something is going to happen or a missile from Syria is going to come into Turkey. That is never going to happen.”
MS/EA
MNA
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