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Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu & Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Nov. 30. 2015 (photo: NATO)

NATO allies agreed on Friday to send aircraft and ships to Turkey to strengthen Ankara’s air defences on its border with Syria, the alliance’s chief said, a package that is partly designed to avoid any more shoot-downs of Russian planes.

Envoys to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation approved the plan and must now decide what military assets to send to Turkey, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told Reuters, stressing that it was a defensive measure.

“We have agreed on a package of assurance measures for Turkey in view of the volatile situation in the region,” Stoltenberg said, although he avoided any reference to Russia’s military involvement in Syria and its air incursions….

Due to be assembled in the coming weeks, the package will include NATO’s AWACS surveillance planes and what Stoltenberg described as “enhanced air policing including maritime patrol aircraft” as well as NATO ships in the eastern Mediterranean provided by Germany and Denmark exercising in the area….

NATO diplomats worry Ankara is too aggressive and that further incidents could escalate the situation after Russia moved its modern S-400 air defence system into Syria that can hit missiles and aircraft from up to 400 km….

“We are concerned about the military build-up in the region,” Stoltenberg said, and said he hoped NATO could repeat the same kind of air policing done in the Baltics, “without incidents and accidents.”