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Sat, Feb 05, 2011 | The Rubin Report | By Barry Rubin

Turkish forces during a NATO exercise.

Turkey to Train Syria’s Army

While we are being told constantly how well things are going in the Middle East, still another dangerous development has been ignored by the Western media and policymakers.

A pro-regime Turkish newspaper reports that the Turkish army will start training the Syrian army.

Mon, 31 January 2011 | Anatolia News Agency

Turkish army to train Syrian army

Turkey and Syria have agreed on training of Syrian army by Turkish military, sources said on Monday.

Sources told the Anatolia news agency that Turkey’s Deputy Chief of General Staff Aslan Güner visited Damascus, Syria in December and debated training of Syrian army.

[…]

Some circles think that Syrian army, which had been an ally of the former Soviet Union for years, could assume western style in case Syrian soldiers are trained by Turkish soldiers.

Turkish and Syrian army came to the brink of war in 1998 as Syria sheltered the terrorist organization PKK. However, the two countries launched a cooperation against the PKK with the Adana Agreement signed the same year and defined as the turning point of Turkish-Syrian political relations.

Source: Today’s Zaman

Yes, that’s right. A NATO member is going to train the army of a country allied with Iran, at war with Israel, recently caught trying to build a nuclear weapons’ facility, sponsoring terrorists in Iraq that kill Americans, and being the patron of Hamas and Hizballah.

Might there be a problem here? How secure are NATO’s weapons, technology, and strategies now with the Turkish regime getting so close to the Iran-Syria alliance. Of course, Turkey’s armed forces are still pro-Western and probably hates what the government is making them do. Nevertheless, this is the trend.

How can this Turkish regime be a U.S. ally if it is training the military of the most radical regime and leading sponsor of terrorism in the Arabic-speaking world?

Related: Turkey’s Military is also training the Lebanese army’s Special Forces. Read here.