Turkey's MFA called on Wednesday for an interview with the Iranian ambassador in Ankara. As reported in a peculiar statement, the diplomat was presented with an authoritative protest over a rocket launched that day by Iran and neutralized over Turkey's territory," she forwarded to Reuter's agency, citing Turkish diplomatic sources.
Previously, the Defence Ministry in Ankara reported that NATO air defence captured a ballistic rocket launched from Iran. It was made clear that the rocket was destroyed over the east Mediterranean and that no 1 was injured as a consequence of the incident.
The Ministry of Defence's Communication stresses that "Turkey reserves the right to respond to any hostile action against it and warns all parties to refrain from actions that may lead to an escalation of the conflict".
The head of Turkish diplomacy Hakan Fidan spoke on the telephone about the incidental with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Aragchi. Among another things, he called for the avoidance of any action that could aggravate the ongoing crisis.
The rocket shot down on Wednesday is the first case that can be treated as an effort to drag a NATO associate State into an American-Israeli operation against Iran. The head of the U.S. Defence Ministry Pete Hegseth, commenting on the event, estimated that there were no grounds for launching the NATO joint defence clause (Article 5).
APW, PAP
