Spain Will Deploy Patriot Missile Battery To Turkey After Netherlands Backs Out

Spanish Defense Minister Pedro Morenes said on Wednesday that his country will send a Patriot anti-ballistic missile battery to Turkey's southern border with Syria as part of a NATO initiative replacing the Netherlands' contribution to the deployment.

The announcement comes soon after the Netherlands said it no longer had the resources to keep its batteries deployed, and will end its contribution to the initiative at the end of January 2015, according to Reuters.

The Netherlands, Germany and the United States had each sent two Patriot missile batteries and soldiers to operate them in early 2013, after Turkey, a NATO ally, called for aid to defend itself against attacks from Syria, on its southern border, the report added.

"We will collaborate...with a similar number of units to Germany and the United States," Morenes said in an address to a parliamentary defense commission.

Spain will also send 130 soldiers to operate the missiles, Morenes added.

He also said Spain was still debating whether it might have a role in an international coalition to root out Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, being pulled together and led by the United States.