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.
Officials at the US-led alliance are still smarting from Russia’s weekend incursions into Turkey’s airspace near northern Syria.
“Nato is ready and able to defend all allies, including Turkey against any threats,” Nato’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters as he arrived for the meeting.
“Nato has already responded by increasing our capacity, our ability, our preparedness to deploy forces including to the south, including in Turkey,” he said, noting that Russia’s air and cruise missile strikes were “reasons for concern”.
As Russian and US planes fly combat missions over the same country for the first time since World War II, Nato is eager to avoid any international escalation of the Syrian conflict that has unexpectedly turned the alliance’s attention away from Ukraine following Russia’s annexation of Crimea last year.
Russia is making a very serious situation in Syria much more dangerous
The incursions of two Russian fighters in Turkish airspace on Saturday and Sunday has brought the Syria conflict right up to Nato’s borders, testing the alliance’s ability to deter a newly assertive Russia without seeking direct confrontation.
While the United States has ruled out military cooperation with Russia in Syria, Nato defence ministers will discuss how to encourage Russia to help resolve the crisis, betting that Moscow also wants to avoid being bogged down in a long conflict. “There has to be a political solution, a transition,” Mr Stoltenberg said.
“Russia is making a very serious situation in Syria much more dangerous,” Britain’s defence minister, Michael Fallon said, calling on Moscow to use its influence on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to stop bombing civilians.
For 40 years, Nato’s central task was deterring Russia in the east during the Cold War, but now the alliance is facing a reality-check close to home, with multiple threats near its borders.
Divisions between eastern Nato members, who want to keep the focus on the Ukraine crisis, and others who fret about Islamic State militants, risk hampering a unified response from the 28-nation North Atlantic alliance.
France and Britain, Nato’s two main European powers, are understood to be willing to see the alliance use its new 5,000-strong rapid reaction force beyond Nato borders, potentially helping stabilise post-conflict governments in Libya or Syria.