Turkey could be a problem for NATO - by Eric Morse

PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Late Wednesday afternoon a five-line item came through on a private news service buried among 50 other snippets bearing esoteric titles like “Japan: Bahraini King Meets With PM,” or “Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood To Hold Million-Man March.” And there, nearly lost in the heap, was “Syria: Turkey May Invoke NATO’s Protection — Erdogan.” That one was a head-turner. It was followed by a more detailed report from Reuters.

Apparently, on Wednesday Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a plane full of Turkish journalists somewhere over China that Turkey might invoke Article V of the NATO Charter to protect its southern border against Syrian incursions. (Syrian forces have been violating the border regularly in pursuit of refugees from the insurrection, with ground forces and artillery fire).

As it happens, Article V is the “an attack on one is an attack on all” clause that was famously invoked in 2001 to involve NATO countries in the Afghanistan war. In fact, that is the only time Article V has ever been invoked since NATO was founded in 1949. So for Erdogan to have brought it up is not petty or picayune, even if it was said in a flying scrum.

The leader of a NATO member country is talking about invoking a Charter clause that could conceivably involve much of the alliance in operations up to and including combat on Turkey’s southern frontier. That’s important, but few major media ran with it.

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