KAHRAMANMARAS, TURKEY // For Mustafa Tuten, Nato soldiers scheduled to arrive here this week to shield the region against potential Syrian missile attacks are not welcome protectors but unwanted foreign occupiers.”As Muslim Turks, we are against foreign soldiers,” Mr Tuten, president of the local chapter of the religious Felicity Party in this south-eastern Anatolian city, said last week, as he met voters at the party headquarters.He said foreign troops should keep a low profile in Kahramanmaras to avoid a hostile reaction.The arrival of Nato troops in Turkey has triggered protests by leftist and Islamist troops. Some of the criticism is fuelled by mistrust of the West in general and the US in particular, and some by memories of foreign intervention in Turkey after the First World War.Several weeks ago, the Felicity Party was among the organisers of a small protest against the deployment of Nato troops in Kahramanmaras. Protesters burnt US, Nato and Israeli flags, which accurately reflects residents’ feelings about the foreign deployment, according to Mr Tuten.
Today about 400 German soldiers with two batteries of Patriot missile defence systems are to complete their deployment to a Turkish barracks complex overlooking Kahramanmaras from the flanks of a mountain range facing the Syrian border, about 100 kilometres to the south. The Patriots can destroy incoming missiles at a distance of about 70km.Col Marc Ellermann, the commander of the German unit who has been preparing for the arrival of his troops with an advance team, said the mission’s aim was “deterrence that may help to defuse tensions a little”.The Turkish government requested Nato’s assistance last November after Syrian artillery shells landed on Turkish territory and killed five civilians, which raised fears that the fighting between Bashar Al Assad’s army and rebels could spill over into its territory.
