‘Kürecik not used in joint operation’

ANKARA

Claims that the radar deployed in Malatya’s Kürecik district as part of a NATO missile defense system was tested for the first time in an Israeli-US joint radar operation have been denied by a Turkish politician.

“A radar system was set up in Israel in 2010. Probably a news story, related to a testing of the radar system in Israel, linked it to the one in Turkey in an attempt to manipulate Turkish-Israeli public opinion,” Ali Rıza Alaboyun, a deputy member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly from Turkish Parliament, said in a written statement yesterday.

The statement added that the radar in Kürecik would not be active until 2013. A joint exercise carried out Friday, Feb. 10, demonstrated the interoperability of the US Aegis and Israel’s Arrow 2 Block 4 ballistic missile defense systems and their two radars, the US AN/TPY-2 X-band and Israel’s EL/M-2080 Super Green Pine, an Israeli news site, Debka, reported. One of the American stations is located on Mount Keren opposite the Egyptian border in southern Israel; the other is at a Turkish air base in the southeastern town of Kurecik,” the report added. k HDN