March 5 (Reuters) – NATO has increased its alliance-wide ballistic missile defence posture following the intercept of a missile from Iran targeted at Turkey, its military headquarters said on Thursday.
The posture will remain at the heightened level until the threat from Iran’s “continued, indiscriminate attacks across the region subsides,” Colonel Martin O’Donnell, spokesperson for the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, said in a post on X.
O’Donnell said NATO had “perfectly executed” its missile defence in Turkey on Wednesday.
“In less than 10 minutes, NATO service members identified a threat to allies, a ballistic missile, confirmed its trajectory, alerted land- and sea-based missile defence systems and launched an interceptor to defeat the threat and protect our territory and its people,” he said.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte earlier on Thursday said the alliance does not plan to trigger its Article 5 mutual defence clause over the ballistic missile attack, amid fears the alliance could become embroiled in the U.S.-Iran war.
Rutte did not go into detail when asked about an increased defence posture in the alliance.
(Reporting by Bart Meijer and Andrew Gray; Editing by Bill Berkrot)