Turkey agrees to host missile early warning radar for Nato

Turkey has agreed to host an early warning radar as part of Nato's missile defence system aimed at countering ballistic missile threats from neighbouring Iran.

A Turkish foreign ministry statement said discussions on the country's contribution to Nato's missile defence shield had reached "their final stages".

It did not say when or where the US early warning radar would be stationed.

Nato members agreed to an anti-missile system over Europe to protect against Iranian ballistic missiles at a summit in Lisbon last year. A compromise was reached with Turkey, which has cultivated close ties with its neighbour Iran and had threatened to block the deal if Iran were explicitly named as a threat.

Under the Nato plans, a limited system of US anti-missile interceptors and radars already planned for Europe – to include interceptors in Romania and Poland as well as the radar in Turkey – would be linked to European-owned missile defences. That would create a broad system that protected every Nato country against medium-range missile attacks.